Mounted search and rescue

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

If your logistics section/branch does not provide for emergency services for searchers your operation is seriously deficient.  We are lucky in that most counties have a support unit within an hour or two of most of their territory.  Some of the larger counties have several field command posts scattered through the area.  Before region wide com systems there were more since some radios were only good in some areas.  Our home county has 2 step van sized units and a set of tactical repeaters mounted in a 4x4.  Our sat phones don’t work because nobody will pay the standby fees. There is one canteen service in our home county, one in each of 2 mutual aid counties, plus the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.  Each dispatch center has a protocol for dispatching an ambulance(s) to the CP/camp area.  We often release all but one unit as soon as possible.  We probably rely on the availability of aeromedical helicopters too much but there is only one level 2 trauma center and 3 burn units outside of the city’s teaching hospitals on one side of the river, and only 1 in all of South Jersey.  There are specialty units similarly scattered about the area or multi-jurisdictional task forces.  Drinking water gets hauled by fire apparatus with stainless or plastic tanks and folding tanks.  Most of our members who keep at home use commercial bagged feeds, available almost anywhere in the region. Those who board grab 5 gallons worth from the bin on the way out.  Same for hay.  Vets are on call but it is usually faster to haul to the vet.  We are working on getting a field vet but the University vet school service wants a guarantee of payment.  We sleep where we can, the back of pickups, in the stock trailers, tack rooms or the overhang of goosenecks, on the ground.  Our corrals are electric rope wrapped around a tree.  Since there is only one horse friendly campground in the region we rarely use the same location twice.

 

You must take care of your people. And in this economy using somebody else’s gear the few times we need it is a better use of resources. Besides, the canteen people need something to do too.   

 

By the way, when I filed the latest federal grant application for the township I was informed that based on our population density we were rural, not suburban. US Rider motor club lists a leading cause of horse trailer accidents as getting hung up on road crowns or railroad tracks with long goose neck units.  We had one belly out in a field, catching the folding steps on a small berm, and the ones hit by trains don’t usually disconnect from the tow vehicle.  We have lots of rail crossings posted for no commercial tractor trailers due to humps or dips on public roads.

 

Irv Lichtenstein

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jorene Downs
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 11:06 PM
To: 'Mounted search and rescue'
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Hasty Mounted Team--obvious