Mounted search and rescue

["philip easley" <easleyranch@foothill.net>]

Hello and welcomeTracy,
I am a lurker, I also do not check my e-mail often enough.  400 spam mails
per day.  Working that.  Anyway, Our mounted SAR started with our Sheriff's
Mounted Posse in 1982 when I was hired by the Nevada County Sheriff's
Department as a new Deputy Sheriff.  Having grown up in the county and being
a cowboy and advanced horseman, I was recruited into the Posse and was
quickly made the Posse Coordinator.  We were only a parade unit at that
time, but I then took on the task of developing them into a mounted SAR
unit.  I initially started the training myself of the group and recruited
new young people who were interested in SAR.  We were not taken very serious
by the other searchers for they felt dogs were the only way to search.  I
had to be creative and study SAR to develop ways to search from horseback
that would make us valuable.  With me pointing out how horses would actually
spot lost people before we did and how the horse tracks were not easily
confused with the lost person's tracks, we were reluctantly used on our
first search near Lake Spaulding about 30 minutes west of Truckee,
California in the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains.  We were the ones who
rescued Eli during that search when all other searchers were exhausted.  He
was the first child to have been through the Hug-A-Tree program that had
been lost.  Our unit was suddenly Nationally recognized and the long fight
to be a part of SAR had then begun.  We no longer use the Sheriff's Posse,
but have started a group called the Nevada County Sheriff's Department
Search and Rescue Inc...  That allowed us to have our own fund raising that
the county could not stick their fingers into.  We all cross train as ground
pounders and Man Trackers as well as in First Responder First Aid and CPR.
Our Mounted Team in small, but we train regularly and have now been heavily
used.  We hold annual qualifications, which are similar to a trail course.
We expose them to helicopters, sirens, flares, firecrackers, gunfire, smoke,
EMU's, lamas, people with back packs, and demonstrate horsemanship.  Being
proficient in all those areas show the animals and riders are in a regular
training program that will reasonably assure one that the animal and rider
is safe to use and trained to do the job.   If you would like to know more
e-mail me at work philip.easley@co.nevada.ca.us .  There, I have said more
than I have since I started in this group.  I can be a lurker again.
Philip Easley
Deputy Sheriff/SAR Coordinator
NCSO SAR Inc... Board Member
Nevada County Sheriff's Department
Nevada City, Ca.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Una Smith" <una@lanl.gov>
To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 2:43 PM
Subject: Re: [MSAR] New Member


> Tracy Helget wrote:
> >Everyone on this group has been so helpful and willing
> >to share information.
>
> Well, everyone who has replied to you has been helpful and
> willing to share information.  But most readers here just
> lurk.  Lurking is their privilege, although sometimes I do
> wish they would speak up.  So many good things come from
> making yourself known to others.
>
> Una Smith
> Santa Fe County Sheriff's Posse, in New Mexico
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