Mounted search and rescue

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

Sorry you misunderstood my post, Irv.  I wasn’t addressing management roles, I was comparing SAR response with fairly available support resources to remote Wilderness SAR. However, it isn’t unusual in remote Wilderness SAR for Logistics to coordinate logistical needs for medical support, evacuation, etc.,  for searchers and/or for the subject … or anyone else who shows up needing medical assistance. The medical person at base steps up regarding actual medical needs and care, regardless if a searcher or the subject or a hiker wandering through. Remember your ICS roles can be combined or adjusted, designed for flexibility. This can be particularly important when you’re running a minimally staffed ICP on Hasty Team response. Adjust as you go, and consider available skill sets, training levels, experience, etc. It isn’t unusual for the same personnel to work together at the CP, and you tend to establish a rhythm for who normally does what, and who covers doing X when that person isn’t there.

 

Since you specifically mentioned medical support, I’ll clarify that in a remote Wilderness SAR in your own known operational area, the medical plan for *any* injury requiring a carryout, ambulance, helicopter, etc., is usually pretty basic because you likely don’t have many options to choose from. Most of it is just common sense, like assigning the folks prepared for technical rescue to the more technical terrain search areas and sending the closest teams to assist with a carry out or work topside at the rope rescue. The field teams provide the medical in the field, so you set up each team to include some higher level of medical training and related equipment. You make note of the possible LZs near your base  and maybe there is another access road in the area to be aware of, where you already have searchers working the road who are prepared to transport. Odds are the closest ambulance is in the little isolated community you drove through a couple of hours ago when responding to the SAR.  When you have a find you look for the closest access point considering available support resources. If you’re lucky the closest hospital where a chopper can land anywhere in the general area is under 2 hours flight time. Adjust as needed.

 

Remote Wilderness SAR isn’t something to get involved in if you expect “help” to arrive within 30 minutes, or even within the hour. Commonly teams go out with a 72 hour pack … for a reason.  When additional resources are distant, you use what is available if/when it is available and plan to NOT have it available so you can be pleasantly surprised if it is.  ;-/

 

Like I’ve been trying to explain – judging from Irv’s response perhaps not particularly well -  what is “normal” in SAR when closer to civilization and other resources may not be “normal” in deep backcountry Wilderness SAR.  In Irv’s area of PA described as rural, I suspect you can call for a helicopter and expect one to respond fairly soon. In some areas you might even ask for – and receive - more than one chopper. In comparison, consider there are many large operational areas with no helicopter of their own who rely on outside resources for air support, neighboring jurisdictions also may not have a chopper, and that type of outside resource may be rather distant.

 

For example, I’m in a CA county the size of the state of CT, with no agency / government helicopters in the county, and our searches are primarily up the highest mountain in the lower 48 states … and higher elevation limits which choppers can even respond, much less what they can accomplish. The Navy SAR helicopter in the county to the west was shut down almost a decade ago, and we lost a valuable regional asset. The county to the south might be able to free up their one LE helicopter. The county to the north is where the CHP helicopter is based, but it is too small to do much more than search from the air or carry a litter on the side, and can’t handle the higher altitudes. The county to the east, over the mountain, also doesn’t have a helicopter. Local helicopters are private / contract, and may not be available or may not be suited for the mission. The closest available helicopter suitable for our needs through mutual aid may be several hours flight time away, and choppers only fly our mountains in daylight hours.  The “closest available helicopter suited to the mission” longest response time I can recall is something like 7 hours to arrive. (Military Blackhawk.) We don’t have a local or regional Civil Air patrol unit. What we do have is several small planes available through the volunteer Sheriff’s Aero Squadron, which also trains for SAR air support.

 

(Yes, this really is in CA. This state is far more than the population explosion in L.A., San Francisco, etc., and has everything from beaches to huge deserts and massive steep mountains, along with substantial agricultural lands and vast remote wilderness areas.)

 

Response time – at speed - may be several hours just to reach the location to establish the CP. To give an example of distance and limited vehicle access … a few years ago I responded to 2 call-outs the same day, started from a fairly central location in the county, never left the county, and put 500 miles on my truck even though the destinations were perhaps 100 miles apart as the crow flies. I had to come back down the mountain in order to go up the mountain using another access road when I was rerouted from A to B.

 

Remote Wilderness SAR management and field resources tend to adapt / compensate by becoming more self-sufficient since the need for self-sufficiency increases the further you are from other resources. For example, personnel with a higher level of medical training – equipped per their level of training – are in the field or at base, prepared to provide aid to each other and / or someone else like the found subject, potentially for many hours. If, for example, the subject is located during a blizzard and you’re many miles from support, responders might provide medical care, establish shelter, and hunker down until it is safer to move. Personnel tend to be cross trained to be more versatile, including folks working the ICP who can step into other roles as needed.  Outside resources may or may not be available in a [relatively] timely manner. Delays may be caused by availability, distance, weather, etc.

 

Cellular service is rare in remote wilderness. Amateur radio repeaters may not be available. Folks may need to switch from one repeater to another, may need to relocate to even hit that repeater, or may need personnel to pack around portable repeaters. Teams may be miles apart on trails, many miles from the CP or any access roads.  

 

Ground teams are commonly 4 people – sometimes more, particularly if a technical rescue may be needed - so if there is a problem there are 3 others there to help, or 1 to stay with an injured person and 2 to buddy if they need to relocate any distance to have radio communication. MSAR trained for transport in the saddle would normally be 4 riders in case a chair carry lift is needed for the subject, hopefully with a spare saddled mount so the return is faster than a rider walking and leading. Litter carries tend to be labor intensive with minimum teams of 12 if there is notable distance or steep trails so personnel can rotate. (We had one litter carryout from a steep canyon with about 30 responders involved, passing the litter.) MSAR can assist there by packing in/out gear for the litter carry personnel, since many backcountry MSAR are also experienced packers.

 

Remote Wilderness SAR folks do the best they can with [hopefully] better trained and equipped resources as SAR responders who are expected to be pretty self-sufficient. But remember to bring X with you because you’re too far from civilization to just pop over to a store to acquire something you forgot – assuming X is even available - and having something delivered may take multiple hours.

 

I’ve also heard that in some more isolated communities, local SAR folks also provide the ambulance response or are part of volunteer Fire, so in those locations once again adjustments are made regarding resources since you don’t want to completely deplete the community’s emergency response resources for a SAR response. Resource management is particularly important when additional resources may be many hours away.

 

I hope these examples help folks understand what I mean by “remote” and some of the challenges to overcome that you don’t find in SAR closer to population that has a fair amount of support resources available. But while we have some pretty remote wilderness areas and limited support resources,  I doubt my own county can claim to have the “most remote” Wilderness SAR operational area.

 

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Jorene Downs

SAR & CERT

Mounted SAR

www.ceoates.com/msar

 

 

From: IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN [mailto:ilichten1@verizon.net]

You are still confused—logistics provides medical support for the SEARCHERS, not the subject. Resources devoted to supporting searchers have nothing to do with supporting EMS response to the search subject.  That is a different task and is carried out by the medical section which may include an evacuation team as well.

 

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From: Jorene Downs
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2009 10:08 AM
To: 'Mounted search and rescue'
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Hasty Mounted Team logistics