Mounted search and rescue

["IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>]

The first rule of any incident is never assume.  Even when using the models in the “book” we have found toddlers (3-5 year olds) who walked miles away across farm fields, and persons who left institutions and were found in the gutter less than a quarter mile away.  The major problem with crops is that they limit vision on the ground and when growing may obscure the trail/track into the field.  Corn that is mature and the stalks hard and brittle will break and stay broken by a careless person’s passage, a careful one will go between the rows or follow animal damage (deer for instance) through the field.  Green corn will grow back and will stand up again like green grass.  

 

If you find an obvious clue, such as the vehicle or personal property, you have a new PLK to work from.  This should call in a full effort—trackers, dogs, horses, foot troops.

There is no discussion of feasibility of passage.  If you can go there the subject can go there, and a few places you wouldn’t.

 

There is no irrational act by a lost person. There are desperate acts to survive, “to get home”, to be found. There are also people who want to end it and will obscure their path and location.  There are often days between the actual act and the report of such a person being missing and much of the clues are gone by the time you get called.

With the exception of a witnessed gunshot I have never received a call out for a suicide until 2-3 days had gone since last seen.  Institutional walk a ways are usually at least one bed check delayed.  Historically, walk a ways from VA hospitals were found at other VA hospitals they had been treated at, usually warmer climes in the winter. Elderly walk a ways were usually found close in, on the “wrong” side of a hedge, or wall, or in brush, often headed back.  And many suicides are found above in the woods around here, on deer stands if a gun is not involved.

 

Irv Lichtenstein       

 

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Subject: Re: [MSAR] Midwest search