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Subject: Mounted search and rescue
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- From: "Jorene Downs" <Jorene@CEOates.com>
- To: "MSAR-L" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: [MSAR] Wilderness SAR with LAPD
- Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 02:20:25 -0700
Fascinating experience. 2 LAPD (Los Angeles PD) officers overdue deep in
our high mountain backcountry. They went off into rugged terrain on motorcycles,
discovered what they thought was the right trail just took them into worse
terrain, thought they were about to run out of gas and decided to hike out.
Heading the right direction back to camp took them into even rougher terrain ...
wearing motorcycle boots. (Ouch!) They promptly destroyed their feet and had
reduced mobility. When air search and local ground personnel (Forest Svc and our
resident Deputy) hadn't turned up any real clues by late afternoon other than a
direction of the bike tracks, we assembled the Hasty Team. 4 hour drive from my
home to the ICP - at speed with the Hasty Team for over 3 hours up and over the
Sierra Nevadas to the other side. That night we sent out trackers and such. More
resources were scheduled for morning. We had the motorcycles spotted by 9 AM
with a direction of foot travel established. The 2 LAPD officers were located by
lunch, brought in by chopper. I got home late last night. USFS will recover the
motorcycles today. This could have been a typical SAR for us and normally I
wouldn't even mention it. However ...
What kind of reaction would you have if you heard LAPD was responding to
"help" in a SAR in your territory? I admit most of us had visions of
steamrollers - 2 of their own were missing. I had about 35 from LAPD (we had
them turn back more resources!) report to the ICP as volunteers in the morning,
and every one of them was pleasure to work with. Repeated question "What can we
do to help?" And every time I said "Can you ...?" they were right there handling
it.
LAPD essentially said "Let us know what resources you need - we'll get them
for you." @25 officers with off-road motorcycles were already at the mobile ICP,
including 5 from LAPD's off-road motorcycle team. A few quads. Chopper,
with more if we asked for them to add to our local air support. 3
mounted showed up from LAPD - not SAR trained, but experienced backcountry. I
blinked when one LAPD Lt pulled her Friesian out of the trailer! ;)
Typical of law enforcement LAPD had no training in SAR - much less
Wilderness SAR at 8000+ feet - and they realized that as fast as I started
asking about their training, experience, equipment on hand, etc. There were only
a couple of officers that we'd be able to send out anywhere other than well
marked roads. Nothing off-road. But they very useful as road and jeep trail
monitors.
Never in my wildest thoughts would it have occurred to me I'd be shaking
hands with a Deputy Chief from LAPD who'd flown in on one of their choppers. So
we ran a successful deep Wilderness SAR with all kinds of brass around. We've
had our own brass around before for high visibility SAR - the Sheriff and/or
UnderSheriff usually show up - but this was my first experience with brass
from outside agencies.
From LAPD we had a Deputy Chief, Captain, 2 Lieutenants, a couple of Sgts.,
@ 25 officers, several communications techs (they had their own repeater en
route), 1 chopper (more if we wanted them) ... and of course family was at the
mobile CP. LAPD was great to work with!
My primary point of contact was an LAPD Lt who expressed interest in
providing at least basic SAR training to some of his personnel. I pointed him
towards NASAR. ;)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jorene Downs Tulare Co, CA SAR, MSAR, Swiftwater Rescue, US&R, Technical Rescue, Cave Rescue, Hasty Team, ICP www.CEOates.com/sar Tulare-Kings CERT Program Coordinator www.tk-cert.org |
-
[MSAR] Wilderness SAR with LAPD,
Jorene Downs, 09/13/2003
-
RE: [MSAR] Wilderness SAR with LAPD,
Jeff Ezell, 09/13/2003
- Re: [MSAR] Wilderness SAR with LAPD, Jorene Downs, 09/14/2003
-
RE: [MSAR] Wilderness SAR with LAPD,
Jeff Ezell, 09/13/2003
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