Mounted search and rescue

["K. R. Kelly" <sarlady@yahoo.com>]

Greetings, it's been a long time since I've posted. Irv is right in the difference between dead and unresponsive. Depending on where you live, only a medical examiner or a coroner (or reserve coroner) can legally declare "death", and if you commit resources, you are committed until you can no longer physically continue, until someone of equal or higher authority takes over, or until you are directed by a responsible party to stop.

There are five main areas, however, when someone "untrained" can logically conclude death: decomposition (obvious: putrefaction, skin slippage, hair mat fall, etc), rigor mortis (stiffening of the muscles, beginning with small muscles, ie, fingers, toes, face, etc. and extending to larger muscles over time), inceration (Crow Glassman scale, or obvious fourth degree burns with pugilistic posing with no life signs of breathing, vocalizations present, etc), evisceration of a major organ (ie, brain, heart, lungs are life sustaining organs; evisceration of the intestines, for example, is not an obvious sign of death without other supporting evidence), or decapitation (obvious sign). Drowning itself is not something we (SAR) can declare even, because of rare mammalian responses in cold, clean water within the "golden hour." 

Signs of coldness and signs of insect activity are NOT considered signs of death. As the ER saying goes, they aren't dead if they are cold and dead, until they are warm and dead. Hypothermia can cause a person to be unresponsive to even the most painful stimuli; until proper warming procedures are initiated, they can't be considered gone. A good rule of thumb is if there is any flexibility in any joint or tissue surface (ie, they are not in rigor or frozen solid, or near solid, from temperatures) proceed with urgent evacuation to a care facility.

Kimberly R. Kelly

1SRG: 1st Special Response Group, Moffett Air Field, California

K9 Team, Dolores, Colorado

SDSO SAR and Underwater Search and Recovery, retired