Guess What I Got (And Training & News Too)

Heh heh, a new toy! Yep, now I can be a pest and take pictures—video too—of all things SAR. (Added later: This was a bit before cell phones had good cameras or maybe any cameras.) I'm photographically challenged, but I'll do my best to add some pizazz to my babbles from here on out with some images, though I'm sure, at times, it won't be possible—or right—to take pictures while on missions. Here, look, I think I figured out how to point and shoot:


That's the team, getting ready for some training earlier today, on line search and probability of detection. We had a good turnout—15 of us, I believe, including four from mounted with their horses.


Here's how it worked:

Yesterday, our team captain and other volunteers set up the course. They put out a bunch of five-gallon buckets, all painted brown to blend in with the surroundings. These buckets were spread out among the ponderosa pine, which is fairly open terrain but still littered with forest debris, rocks, and stumps, the latter resembling the buckets (or, rather, vice versa).

Behold Nelson and a bucket...


Today, we split into teams of three or four and, team by team, determined our critical spacing. That means an object roughly the same size as what we'd be looking for (in this case, it was an identical brown bucket) was set on the ground, and each person walked away from it to the point where they could still see the bucket and identify it as a bucket. We then counted our paces from that point back to the bucket. The average of each team's results was the critical spacing used for that team's line.

Now, using critical spacing usually means each person is twice that measured distance from the next searcher. That way, if the object is exactly between two people, it could still be seen. Critical spacing is affected not only by the size of the object—which, of course, could be as big as an unresponsive person or as small as a bullet—the terrain, the amount of brush, the weather, and so forth. Given the conditions and size of the objects today, our team's critical spacing turned out to be 30 paces, or roughly 90 to 100 feet, which meant searchers could be 60 paces, or about 200 feet, apart.

Given the size of the search area, however, and the number of people in our lines, we spread out at half critical spacing, or 30 paces apart (except for the mounted folks, who went two at a time, 60 paces apart). We all had radios in order to communicate rather than shouting down the line. We'd say, "Team 1, stop" or "Team 1, start," stating our team number first because there were other teams in the field, to start and stop our lines moving forward at intervals.

This photo shows the distance between me and my next teammate in the line, while another teammate paces off to his spot further out.


So, okay, each time a team member spotted a bucket, they would stop the line without pointing to the sighted bucket and write down the GPS coordinates of their current location, the direction of the bucket from their location using positions on a clock, and then their approximate distance from that bucket.

Sometimes, when the line stopped, other team members would spot the same bucket. Other times, the line would start up again, only to be stopped one step later when someone else spotted that or a different bucket. So it was stop and go, stop and go. We didn't know until we finished how many buckets were in the field.

I know, this sounds awfully thrilling, doesn't it? But I enjoy searching, not to mention the company of my teammates, and this was like a treasure hunt to me. It was also good practice for staying in our grid, keeping an eye on the person to our right and maintaining our spacing. That's much more challenging in more variable terrain and denser brush than we had today, though.

After the exercise, we all gave our notes to our coordinator, who's going to do some calculations and explain the results at our next meeting. Until then, I'm not really sure what kind of POD information he'll give us, but I'll let you know when he does.

So that was today's event. That and playing with my new camera and getting some news. Members of our team, along with the adjoining Yavapai County SAR team and others, have been searching on and off for more than two and a half years for a plane that disappeared in the Sedona area. That plane, flown by William Westover, a private pilot from Phoenix, with his passenger Marcy Randolph, has been found in a canyon in the Secret Mountain Wilderness. Here's the article from the Arizona Daily Sun: Plane wreckage identified.

Oops! There goes my pager! Gotta run...

Those Wonderful Search & Rescue Dogs

This past weekend, I was fortunate to meet some members of the Maricopa County K-9 posse, also known as MarK9, and their wonderful dogs.

We do have a couple of search dogs on our own team—Cassie, our ground-tracking German shepherd, and Scout, an air-scenting brown Lab—but it's always a treat to meet others and see how they work.

Since Cassie joined our team about a year and a half ago, I've read some about SAR dogs, and I'm really interested in what they can do and how they're trained, though I doubt if I'd ever make that big commitment to become a handler. For one, I currently have a much-loved pup of 11 years, who'd not take kindly to sharing my attention. And once Sassy is no longer with us, I think it'll be a while before my husband and I own another dog (update: that turned out not to be true). Not with my plans for future multi-month thru-hikes and our intention to travel as extensively as possible. Someday, I'm sure we'll have another dog, but whether I'd want or be able to put in the time necessary to properly train a search and rescue canine would remain to be seen.

Anyhow, during our fieldwork this weekend, I enjoyed watching how each dog alerted differently during exercises. Some would bark, one would do circles (wing-dings, I call them), and another, a Weimaraner, basically body-checked her handler. They'd get so excited when it was time to work, which was usually communicated by their handlers putting certain collars, often with bells, or working-dog vests on them.

Also fascinating to me are the various commands and signals that pass between handlers and their dogs. For instance, one handler, Terry, explained to me that there's a difference between the command they give for a live person search and a search for a cadaver, and the dogs actually understand that difference. She explained that the dogs are "proofed" for certain animal bones so they ignore those of deer, elk, and other animals that aren't human. Terry and the others were gracious in answering the many questions my teammates and I pestered them with throughout the day.

Besides the treat of watching the dogs, it was also great to meet members of another SAR team as we sometimes do during big, multi-agency missions and at conferences. I enjoy learning about how they do things—sometimes quite differently than our own team—and what kinds of searches and rescues they've been on lately. I never get tired of the stories.

That's one reason I've put together the Search & Rescue Stories website, where I collect firsthand accounts by rescuers and the rescued and keep directories of websites for SAR teams around the world. I also participate on the SAR-L Discussion List, with topics ranging from techniques, training, and management to SAR tips, gear, news stories, and more. You can find a list of additional search and rescue online forums on my website in the "Articles & More" section.

Anyhow, other than some trainings lately, a litter-carry call that I hear was mostly handled by emergency medical personnel who were notified and quickly responded to the scene, and one 10-22'd call-out for a lost hiker who showed up just as we were loading gear at the SAR building, it's been relatively quiet for the past few weeks. Next weekend is the POD (probability of detection) and line search training, and then the three-day navigation "boot camp" begins on May 1st. The warming weather makes these activities much more enjoyable.

Rock Rescue Academy

That time of year is drawing near: Rock Rescue Academy will begin in one month, and this time around, I'm going to jump in. I'm a little jittery about it, though. Will I be able to learn the skills well enough? Will I be able to keep up? There are some very experienced, fast, and strong men in the group and one other woman who certainly fits that description. Many of the skills are new to me, and I've never been particularly quick at picking up such hands-on things like knot-tying, for one. I'll need to practice—often.

So, what is the Rock Rescue Academy? Well, it's the basic training course—a series of classroom and field sessions over about a month's time—that anyone who wants to become a member of the technical rescue team (TRT) must successfully complete.

The TRT is a subset of our general SAR team, and those particular members are expected to respond as often as possible to call-outs for technical missions. The TRT responds to incidents generally beyond the capabilities of the rest of the membership, such as high angle and high alpine rescue and missions that take place in difficult terrain, which means these volunteers are sometimes exposed to additional risk. This is why the TRT meets and trains on a monthly basis, and each person on that team must prove their competence with the skills annually to maintain membership.

Last year, I don't believe there were any new recruits to the TRT. Although I'd considered it, I ultimately felt I wasn't ready—that I needed more time to practice and get comfortable with the basics of SAR before taking on more technical skills. This year, I know I'm more capable and ready to give it a try, and I hear that several other general members, also known as ground-pounders, will be joining me in the tech academy for the first time.

Those of us interested in being tech team members have already received a list of special gear we'll need. That list includes:

• Commercially sewn seat harness
  
• Commercially sewn chest harness or webbing for a chest harness
  
• 6-inch locking carabiners
  
• Climbing helmet
  
• Descender
  
• 8mm Tandem Prusik set
  
• Various lengths of Prusiks with a diameter no less than 6mm
  
• Two 1" multi-loop straps (or daisy chains) approximately 5" long
  
• Sturdy footwear (boots, not trail runners)
  
• Leather gloves
  
• Headlamp
  
• Trauma sheers or knife

Given that I own only two of those items and don't even know yet what some of the others are, I'd better get on the stick and start doing my homework... and spending money. I also need to step up my fitness training in preparation for the "3 miles in 45 minutes with a 45-pound pack" test (just in case).

Well, I'm out the door in a few minutes to meet a teammate. He and I are setting up a GPS field course for the upcoming three-day "navigation boot camp" our team is running for other agencies at the beginning of May. Perhaps this is also the time I should upgrade from my beloved 10-year-old GPS to a fancy-dancy new model. Oy, more money heading out the door, too.