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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] Search in King George County VA

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>
  • To: "'Mounted search and rescue'" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] Search in King George County VA
  • Date: Mon, 25 May 2009 00:39:24 -0400

Nobody is disparaging anything except possibly a dispatch philosophy that says send everybody in the order they answer up. We can answer up in 10-15 minutes and try to have a mobilization time of 1 hour (load and go), depending on far away the member is from their horse at call out.   Since a typical real mission would last from 18 to 36 hours tops around here and most of the first responders are 10-15 minutes away and used to thinking that way they often wait before calling in specialists.  As you are aware the mobilization times for most USAR task forces are in the two hour range and travel time is forever when you are waiting for a building collapse team.  Our county may not be as big as some of California’s but we are about 50 miles from end to end. The distance from east to west in the state is around 400 miles and north to south is around 150.  The 90 miles around Philadelphia includes a substantial part of the state’s population, a substantial part of the agriculture, and several adjacent states. NYC is only 80 air miles away.  If we joined the PSARC dispatch list we could go everywhere all the time, and never get there. We have to be requested by a government authorized IC through the proper chain of command.  We don’t need escorts because we are authorized emergency responders.  

 

As to obtaining federal resources we have never had a problem.  Aviation and special assets are available from the Willow Grove Joint Reserve Training Base on a radio call from our EOC.  Their civilian manned fire station responds outside the base routinely, as do their Navy/Marine ARFF and recovery crews. The Army medevac unit does not fly as much since we have civilian copters but they and the LOH unit are still available.  Until the facility closed the Bucks County HAZMAT Team was housed at the Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville, next to the ARFF unit.  Coast Guard Station Philadelphia and Air Station Cape May routinely respond boats and aircraft to incidents.  On one non-emergency assignment, the subject had been missing some time, in the eighties before there were police helicopters, SAR got the use of a SH-2 from the Navy simply by mentioning how useful it would be on the job. We have previously been involved with jobs on National Guard reservations and they have been involved on jobs off their facilities.  They always play by rules but to get something done you just talked to them across the command table.  AP Hill has guard or other units training all the time and at one point was home to the National Boy Scout Jamboree and the units training there should always be available for an emergency. Philadelphia’s First City Troop often trains at AP Hill.  I know where Pax River is at Lexington Park on the other side of the Peninsula, I did some work there.  

 

When we search in Pennsylvania every agency that can lend needed resources is called – state police aviation, the DCNR, the Fish and Boat Commission, Philadelphia Police Aviation, the aero medical helicopters;  volunteer fire, dive,  and rescue; transit authority, railroad and Amtrak (they have a really nice CP bus), the Guard, not just SAR specialists.    Our county operates 2 HAZMAT units, 2 building collapse task forces (great acoustic and video units), 2 volunteer fire task forces plus water tender and LDH groups, at least 5 decontamination teams (hot showers), an IST, multiple field com units, and untold other specialty units, township/county public works units for equipment and region wide mutual aid for everything an EOC can dispatch.  If nothing else we always have access to sanitation, communications, and food.  For some reason the EMS send a paramedic unit for searchers on every call out too.

 

But, we require critical mass to respond to an incident.  An apparatus without a crew is not needed. Single searchers are difficult to use, 1 horse task team is also difficult and we tend to use 3 horses and riders plus base camp as a response because the Ops people can’t secure horses if the riders are away from their mounts.

 

We do things differently.  That doesn’t make our way better or your way better, just different. The comparison with the fire company statistics was to explain the effect of dry runs. Unlike MSAR personnel spread out over 5 counties that have to get to their horses and trailers from work, or home and then to the call, most volunteer firefighters only have to go a few miles to the station, get suited up and on an apparatus for a 5-6 minute ride to the emergency.  Once you have to leave work or get out of bed a few times just to get told you are cancelled a few minutes later you start wondering.  And how many times will you load and go only to find you are cancelled?  Our incentives are not as high as Maryland’s.  Because over 90% of Pennsylvania still is protected entirely by volunteers the state legislature thought feeling good was enough. We now get a $100 state income tax credit (2008 only). If we die on duty the survivors get a lump sum (around $175,000) and our kids get free state college.  This also applies to Guard, Reserve, and cops. Pending are 1 free registration for a car (about $36 here), half price tuition at community colleges, and permission for the establishment of pension plans by response groups (but no state funding). Currently an employer cannot retaliate for you not making work for a call, but he doesn’t have to pay you either.  If you get hurt it is the response organizations responsibility, your employer can’t fire you but his disability and sick leave plans don’t apply.  Another bill is pending to give employers tax credits for letting employees leave work and being allowed to double deduct any expenses (once for what they pay you and again for the replacement or lost business costs).  This will not apply to essential occupations (cops, career firefighters, EMS, medical professionals) who are expected to show up for work regardless.    

 

Irv Lichtenstein

 

  

 




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