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