Mounted search and rescue

[marie.lester@gmail.com]

I agree with the support of ground pounders!  One is still drawing upon training, and it fosters a good relationship with professional services.   Unfortunately, most of our members did not feel the same.   We WERE often asked to patrol parking lots on our equines or participate in public awareness events.    At most , however, there was one search a year, and often we initiated the contact with services to remind them we were available.     SAR training enriched my life, however!

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 15, 2015, at 7:57 AM, ALLEN SNYDER <allendana1@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Great idea!  I will offer ground help to our local PD since we are all trained and background screened.  It is not our fault our leadership is not horseperson or doesn't have time to train with us for readiness.  It is a way we could be useful without the worry of current administration about liability for horses or not sure how to utilize them.  Thank you :)

---

From: Una Smith <una.smith@att.net>
To: Mounted search and rescue <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 15, 2015 9:24 AM
Subject: Re: [MSAR] Mounted SAR news in your area?

Mary Lou Johnson wrote:
>I’m sorry to say that our local SAR, Sanders County Search & Rescue mounted
>team was disassembled.

Mary Lou, is that Sanders County, Montana?  That's really too bad!  Over the
years I have seen some teams dissolve and come together again.  Maybe yours
will be one of those.

In my experience the single most effective thing an MSAR responder can do to
keep the mounted unit viable is to respond as a groundpounder whenever the
horse is not available or not requested.  This develops your SAR skills and
establishes your qualifications as a SAR responder first and foremost.  Then
the fact that you can also respond on horseback becomes a tremendous added
value.

When my children were babies I did not have time to keep a horse fit for SAR
and for many years it was difficult for me to respond for SAR missions in any
capacity.  But I stuck with it.  As the children became less dependent I was
able to pick up SAR again, although not mounted.  My SAR "career" has really
taken off and now I am on a rather short list of SAR responders in New Mexico
who are qualified to work as Incident Commander.  At some point I will pick
up mounted SAR again.

As an IC my "home" area covers 4 counties, 10,120 square miles (26,210 sq km)
and population 235,000.  So far in 2015 this area has had about 20 missions
and I have worked half of them.  Several missions ran 4 or 5 days long, with
hundreds of responders collectively expending thousands of manhours.  You can
see some data for SAR in New Mexico here:

    http://www.dps.state.nm.us/index.php/search-rescue/

Reflecting on what I have written above, I want to expand on the most valuable
part:

The single most effective thing you can do to keep a mounted unit healthy is
this:  when the horse is not available or not requested, respond without the
horse.

Respond as a groundpounder, or if you are not physically able to go in the
field on foot then go as incident base support (radio operator, check in/out,
staging area manager, scribe), or vehicle driver (road-based hasty search,
containment, transportation for field teams).  Et cetera.

Stay safe and ride on,

    Una Smith
    Los Alamos, New Mexico
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