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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] snow searches

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: "IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>
  • To: "'Mounted search and rescue'" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] snow searches
  • Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:17:22 -0500

The first major problem on site is the cold and the snow. Depending on the
horses and people acclimation and gear this can be a stay home and wait for
Spring or an emergency response. Two feet of snow was probably tough going
even for larger horses and definitely a hauling hazard.

On the technology front a thermal imaging device or a FLIR may pick up the
heat of a still warm survivor or body but generally speaking in wind driven
snow visibility and hearing will be greatly reduced. We haven't had a lot
of snow in the East lately but what has come in has come in blizzard
conditions--high winds, low temperatures, heavy snow fall often followed by
a few days above freezing.

Open fields are optimum for aerial searching. Given white snow and probably
dark clothes on the subject a good ground contrast would develop. Also, a
field that has been left since harvesting will probably be smooth and the
body will show as a lump or other unsmooth feature.

I am surprised the subject made it as far as they did in the described
weather and after a crash, although survival is a driver in these
situations. I worked with a USAF officer who had been stationed at Minot.
Two base security persons got stuck in a 4x4 in a snow storm and despite
standing orders to wait it out in the bed of the pickup they grabbed their
gear and started hiking to a farmhouse whose lights they saw. They made
less than 100 yards.

Irv Lichtenstein
SE PA SAR






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