Fourteen kids participated in the program, ranging in age from seven to 14. During the initial overview of what search and rescue is all about, there were lots of questions—bear encounters was a theme that kept coming up—and requests for SAR stories from the area.
After a few stories, we divided the kids into two groups and had some fun with navigation, equipment, and hands-on simulated patient evacuation with the backboard and Stokes litter.
Here, Pete does show-and-tell with the ten essentials from his backpack...
Meanwhile, Al and Dave teach some navigation to the other half of the group....
Next, we did a bit of pretend SAR. In this photo, the injured subject has been located and packaged in the litter...
The kids help Bob, Pete, and me evacuate our patient (who was a very enthusiastic actress)...
After the groups swapped places and had a chance to do everything we'd planned, we did a little impromptu technical rescue demonstration with an imaginary cliff...
After we wrapped up and the campers left for lunch, the camp host said it had gone really well and the kids must have had a great time because they didn't even once ask about their usual snack break. We were then invited back for next summer.
One of the ongoing requirements for being a member team of the Mountain Rescue Association is doing community outreach and P-SAR, so we'll be doing more presentations and interactive programs in the future, for both children and adults.
