Mounted search and rescue

["Jorene Downs" <Jorene@CEOates.com>]

Good stuff, Tomi'. Sounds similar to the demo we did together in VA ... and 
a great way to educate the SAR folks in your own area.

Since we have substantial backcountry (half the county is Park / Forest in 
the Sierra NV mountains) we also provide an annual Educated Passenger 101 
for all local ground SAR. Orientation is in the arena, including basic 
safety around horses, mount/dismount, bare bones of basic riding, "ride" on 
a lead line, then "ride" solo at the walk around the arena ... with an 
escort until that passenger is fairly comfortable with walk, turn and whoa. 
This way we have the potential to use MSAR as transport for SAR personnel, 
and their first time on a horse isn't in the field during a SAR.

We couple this training with Mounted Evacuation training so all in SAR know 
how to evaluate if it is safe to transport that person in the saddle, how to 
load into the saddle and unload, escort, etc. Ground SAR then knows how to 
evaluate / assist. And if it is one of our own SAR folks needing the 
evacuation, this won't be the first time they've been on a horse.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jorene Downs
Tulare Co SAR - Hasty Team ICP Team
www.ceoates.com/sar
Tulare-Kings CERT
www.tk-cert.org

From: "Tm' Fi" <tfinkle@erols.com>
> One thing that our MSAR team did to foster a better working
> relationships with AHJ's and search managers was to increase our type
> and focus of training programs and then open those programs to other
> search teams and agencies. We conduct MSAR 101 courses and have students
> walk down a trail looking for clues (general this produces a 20 to 30%
> POD find).  Then we place the non-MSAR search personnel on horseback and
> using a lead line we walk the horse and rider down that same trail,
> which results in a 70 to 90% POD find).  The key to this course is clue
> placement and the degree vision of angle.  The course also takes away
> many of the fears that folks have of horses.