Mounted search and rescue

[Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>]

Wwaynebare@aol.com wrote:
>Care to Share That Pack list

Sure!  The minimum pack list recommended as part of New Mexico SAR Field
Certification is included in our Field Certification Study Guide, which 
anyone can download as a PDF from http://www.nmesc.org/certification.htm

The Study Guide mentions mounted SAR in several places.  Eg, that horse
riders (and other SAR resources not normally working on foot) should have
boots available that are suitable for groundpounding, and that horse
riders should consider what items to keep on their person rather than on
the saddle.

In the summer of 2006 there was an accident involving an MSAR responder
here in New Mexico.  I posted some details about it on MSAR-Riders.  The
rider (R) bailed, the horse fell down a cliff and died.  Had R's radio
been on the saddle, the radio might well have been lost along with the
horse.

As it happened, while R's partner (P) climbed down to check on the horse
R used R's radio to report the accident to IC.  Up to that point P had
been the field team's radio person but just then they found P's radio
battery was exhausted.  (P had a spare, but elected to occupy R with the
radio task.)  IC got the radio message but due to getting it from R not
P understood R to mean P had gone down not TO but WITH the horse.  Ie,
that the situation included a critically injured or dead MSAR responder.
I was at home that day and received several emergency calls from people
(radio listeners!) who had likewise misunderstood that P and P's horse,
both of whom have often been my own partners, had died.

That accident had several contributing factors, as is so often the case,
but the outcome was not worse because other factors were NONcontributing
or even MITIGATING.  In particular, the MSAR responders involved were
trained and equiped, one was experienced in MSAR, and, most of all, they
stayed within the scope of their abilities and their task assignment.

        Una Smith
        New Mexico