Mounted search and rescue

["Irvin Lichtenstein" <ilichten1@verizon.net>]

Bodies behave under water around here like anywhere, depending on the temperature and to some extent the pollution level and flow. 

Most of the comments seem to indicate the area was soft and spongy, early Spring thaw and possibly rain.

 

The time of year also tends to be field prep time, planting time.  Combines, corn harvesters, even sickle mowers, will chew up almost anything and spit it out.

However, at least around here, the plows tend to be loaded so they will avoid breakage on debris in the field.  Many of our farmers operate in public parks and have to be aware of everything from garbage to dead deer left in the grass (and an occasional body).  We used to find burned out cars frequently in fallow fields.

 

The usual reasons you don’t find somebody (or evidence they had been there) is you didn’t look or they were never there.  We tend to look to an 80% probability of detection because looking any more is not resource effective.  (To go from 50% to 75% takes the same amount of effort as the first 50%, and the third pass takes as much effort again to get the next 5-10% increase.  There is also loss of effectiveness of the searchers going through the same area.)

 

Unless this person established a new life the probabilities of finding enough of him to identify, even with sophisticated DNA analysis, is so low as to make this a training

exercise, not a search.  But we are dealing in probabilities and long shots do come in.  One of our first jobs was a walk-a-way from a VA geriatric center.  We worked trackers, dogs, grids, over the entire reservation of several thousand acres and an adjacent high school.    There was local and interstate bus and rail service within a hundred yards of the gate and when we cleared the reservation we were told to stop looking.  About three years later a housing development was being expanded and when a road was put in the identifiable body was found about a mile outside the VA’s fence.  We don’t know when he died in relation to the search timeframe but it is likely he was living outside the fence for some time.

 

Irv Lichtenstein

 

 

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From: msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:msar-riders-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Karen Nesbitt
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2010 5:53 PM
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Subject: [MSAR] Message: 4 - Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:34:19 -0500