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Thanks for the test of chemical light sticks and
report, Terry. When chemical light sticks were previously mentioned here as
lighting I thought it sounded interesting for backcountry night trail riding
when the rider was in particularly rough terrain on a particularly dark night.
However, without adequate visibility at night you could literally ride right
past a non-responsive subject not far off your path, much less the smaller clue
that could lead you to that person.
From the SAR Management perspective I'd consider
night searchers with inadequate lights to have an extremely low POD. In many
situations the Probability of Detection might be limited to the subject needing
to almost literally be in the path of the searcher. This isn't even reasonable
POD for a night Hasty Team.
I think MSAR riders should consider the area
coverage that a very good headlamp would provide the ground searcher, and seek
lighting options that would cover at least as much area from the saddle. I say
"at least" because the brightness of the lighting would likely need to be
increased from the saddle (farther from the ground) in order to see the smaller
clues visible to the groundpounder. And one of the big advantages to MSAR is the
increased visibility in many environments due to the elevated platform, so it
makes no sense to not take advantage of that elevation at night.
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Jorene Downs Tulare Co, CA SAR, MSAR, Swiftwater Rescue, US&R, Technical Rescue, Cave Rescue, Hasty Team, ICP www.CEOates.com/sar Tulare-Kings CERT Program Coordinator www.tk-cert.org
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