Search and rescue questions

I'm not in a SAR organization but I have many friends that are and I have recently been involved with a SAR operation. Many different organizations have a search and rescue group within that organization: Navy, Border Patrol, local Sheriff, etc. Obviously Navy, Border Patrol, and the Sheriff's staff are professionals, largely the manpower that works under the sheriff's office is volunteer.

On the operation I was out with on Feb 25, my wife and I walked on to help with a search, there was a Whatcom county sheriff at the "command post" (parking lot), there were 3 regular SAR volunteers, and one guy from Border Patrol SAR. The rest of the normal Bellingham Mountain Rescue members were not available due to a training outing that was one drainage over in the area. We had serious conversations about what terrain we were comfortable going into given the avalanche conditions and where we could meaningfully search for a missing person without putting ourselves in danger. After that experience I'm going to get involved with the local mountain search and rescue organization.

The two snowmobile based SAR organizations that I know about are organized through the local snowmobile clubs (NW Glacier Cruisers and Whatcom County Snowmobile Association). I had volunteered for ours when I first started riding but I don't think I had earned anyone's confidence in my riding ability at that time.

Check with your local club if you want to get involved or look for an organization like Bellingham Mountain Rescue close to home.

you can PM me I suk at typing or give me a call 970-756-0635 been on a SAR team for 10 years now.

S@R ??

I suck at typing and long stories,
I have been involved with Yakima County S@R since 99.
Give me a call, 509-952-9478, we have had some great training available.
Its a moving target, practice practice practice

Search and rescue can be a crap shoot. It really does not depend on if it is a big county or small, or a state organization it depends upon budget and leadership (active SAR are aggressive on getting grants for equipment).

I can think of two situations, different counties (and states for that matter)... that feckless leadership "rescue" was not happening.. in both situations the orders of the authorities was finally ignored and friends went in and made the rescues.

I don't know who is on the local search and rescue (in our area) at this time but I know if it is the same clowns on snowmobiles from the forest circus, the person to be rescued is screwed.

It is best not to require rescue. What help is on the way and how fast it arrives varies with the county, conditions, and luck.

Many years of rescue for three different counties and other agencies here.

Personally SAR is last on my list of people to call. In the event of an AVY the buddies you are with have a few minutes to perform a rescue or it becomes a recovery. Lost , stranded, or injured are the main scenarios where you might consider calling SAR. I am most concerned with getting stranded/injured far out due to a sled breakdown in deep snow conditions and having a difficult time being able to double out if I'm with only one other buddy. In this scenario I would much rather have other buddies who are advanced riders, know the area well, and are capable of riding right to us on the mission than SAR. In the amount of time it takes to even get SAR dispatched let alone set up their command post and have lengthy briefings a few buddies could already have you back at the truck. No way SAR is going to have the ability to ride a sled to your location in the dark and get you out. And they will prevent your buddies from coming to get you.

Our program is simple:
1) Make a list of your top 5 riding buddies to call who know all the areas you ride
2) Tell someone where you are going
-We tell people to not even worry until 10PM
-Start getting concerned at midnight
3) Call buddies on list and see if they will go head up and then they can call us on the Garmin when they get into the area and figure out exactly where we are
4) Help double people out and celebrate with cold beers at the truck.
5) Last resort call SAR

I also recently purchase the new Garmin In-Reach. Priceless to be able to communicate directly to your buddies or even SAR about whats going on. A few weeks ago we had a sled go down WAY far back in Revy and were able to keep local buddies updated as we spent 8 hours doubling out in case we actually did need to get a SAR helicopter.

If you ride with at least one or two solid buddies you should be able to handle almost all situations and not require outside help....

I know the guy on our local SAR and they are good guys and riders. The official process and red tape is just not efficient. There is just nothing more effective than having your buddies come get you if possible.

Another thought is to program your SPOT for the "breakdown need assistance" button to report an avalanche and have it send messages to your friends and that you need help.

We carry extra insurance for rescue (because we ride far North Canada in the summer on motorcycles, and medical is a LONG ways away) and we also have the Life Flight membership... have not had to push the emergency button to summon help but my guess is in case of an avalanche the call would go to the local SAR which may be awesome or crap. I think if we rode Northern Idaho or the Cascades we would probably program SPOT for a help call to friends... and then push the emergency button for the helicopter (presuming weather allows)

Friends list development

I asked the medics in my area about rescue in the backcountry and they said that we are the experts on how to get to the secret spots that they likely could not even get to. SAR usually will not respond unless there is confirmation of injury or missing for 24 hours.

It would be good to get the contacts of some of the riding groups that frequent your preferred riding area and build a list of folks that could help if you miss curfew or send a help message on the SPOT, sat phone, ect.

I have a general, "send friends, need help message" to my mom and wife who know several numbers to call to assemble a crew to go in. Most of the breakdown and/or bad stuck situations we could handle the wait or even make it out eventually. They know that the SAR-SOS is for a very serious situation, likely an immobilizing injury.

I need to further develop this and would gladly provide my contact to those who ride the surrounding Leavenworth/Plain area for their contact list. Also establishing a known general frequency for your area and riding groups would be good.

I am member of several SAR organizations. the orgizations I work with have been involved in 4 of the 6 fatality avalanches in Washington this year.

Most SAR in Washington is volunteer, we work with the sheriffs office for response and control, but that is typically one to two deputies. Everyone else is there on their own time to help out. We are extensively trained, typically for every one hour we spend on a mission we have spent 3 hours training.

If any one is interested in volunteering we need more snowmobile members that are solid in the back country. RSVU is one of the organizations I work with, we respond when ATV, UTV, or snowmobile resources are needed.

My experience with SAR is operations run fairly smooth. We can have 20-30 resources any where in the county in about an hour.

its been a hard few weeks with all of the recoveries we have done but its great to be able to bring families back together. I know I have directly help save lives over the years and that makes all the long nights and missed commitments worth it.

S@R??

well said Mike Rider

This thread is pretty discouraging to read, yet unfortunately not surprising. People sure are quick to knock down something they know nothing about.
Let’s take a look at SAR in our state.
SAR in this state is under the jurisdiction of each counties sherriff’s office. The folks going out to look for you are 99% volunteer. The time we put in training and carrying out rescues is all our own time. It’s all out of our pocket for the equipment we want, the fuel we use, the wear and tear we put on our vehicles, sleds, bikes etc. We are not compensated for it we do it because we want to. We get up in the middle of the night to go look for people like so many of the people posting on this thread who thinks himself and unprepared buddies can get themselves out only making it worse creating more work for us and further endangering us and themselves. Yes it happens all of the time.

The comment was made it takes forever for SAR to show up and we stand around forever. Let’s look at this.
It may seem like it takes forever for us to get there because as said above we’re volunteers. We’re not sitting around waiting for something to happen. We’re at dinner with our families, kids events, etc. We could be an hour from our house to get back to so we can load and drive another hour to where we’re going to put in to travel another hour to the patient.

We stand around in the parking lot.
Yes we are. We’re coming up with a plan to do the best we can with an unknown situation to keep ourselves from becoming a part of the problem instead of the solution. It does no good for the rescuer to need rescuing.

SAR can’t get to where we ride.
Very true. I’ve got 3 guys that can effect a rescue where we ride. As stated earlier we’re volunteer. This problem is solely on us as a user group. No one wants to get the training and be part of the solution they would rather beat us down for not being able to do something. I’m constantly trying to recruit folks out our user group but the it’s not going to happen to me mentality is to prevalent.
With the requirements being put on us now it takes close to 40 hours of basic training to become a SAR volunteer and most folks either don't have the time or just don't want to put in the time.

If I really need help I’ll push my Spot button for a helicopter to come get me. Good luck.
Planning on your last resort being a machine dependent on weather and availability is a bad bad bad plan. Helicopters don’t fly at night into the back country, in a blizzard or if they’re already committed to another incident.

Avalanches are a whole different animal. SAR is not getting there in time to effect a rescue in an avalanche. Those need to be done in minutes. Avalanche rescue is up to us as a user group. Getting the education for yourself and riding group is solely on us. If we get ourselves buried we better be able to rescue ourselves.

Instead of sitting behind a keyboard beating up a volunteer group be part of the solution. Use that keyboard to find out about the SAR group in your area and what it takes to become a member. There's something for every skill level.

Yea you dicks, quit bashing the SAR... shsh!

Well said line8

Of course I was not bashing SAR. SAR is a wonderful thing… I have signed up for a list three years in a row… never was called. Apparently they have ample volunteers; or I’m not quite type A enough :face-icon-small-win
Oh yea, we donate to the SAR on both sides of the pass.
The simple fact is that when you are in snowmobile conditions, whether on a groomed trail system or the deep backcountry, you are looking at prolonged response times. Compounding that is the likelihood that you may not have direct communication with anyone. I have had the sheriff called for my absence twice where I was past my check-in time and a friend called the sheriff for a situation where his father was stuck in the backcountry. In those situations the sheriff rescue and SAR was not mobilized as there was no known injury or not missing for 24 hours.
24 hours in 3 degree weather with an injury or not is iffy. Obviously if it is a bad injury the sheriff or SAR would be needed… albeit prolonged response should be expected.
Getting yourself and riding buddies prepared would be a prudent thing to do to enable possibly a quicker response time. And some of us have a little training, like combat medic, wilderness first aid, swift water rescue, and years of field experience. But I understand that looking through your keyboard, I look like a G izza:

Hey Line, I wasn't trying to be defensive and definitely not entitled. Just a little venting of frustration while trying to explain the system. You had said Willingness to help and the ability to help might not always match, man you nailed that one. We run into that a lot.

Powder the injured or missing for 24 hours seems a little odd. Normally the only thing that prevents us from taking a mission right then is the risk vs reward. We have had to say no we can't go right now due to conditions, or turn back because conditions got too unsafe. That's never fun from our side to have to say no. Usually the other scenario we won't go right away would be say someone is lost but equipped and we get the call in the evening, would we possibly be doing more harm to ourselves if we went out in the dark in unfamiliar terrain vs waiting till first light provided the person has the equipment to spend the night out. Usually that's only if we have communication with them.

Part of my frustration in the first post was the reoccurring theme of we can get ourselves out. If you've taken a class from Mike Duffy you've probably heard him say the middle aged white male is his own worst enemy always have a woman in your group. That's pretty dang true we are too proud to admit we need help and it's gotten a lot of folks in trouble by going to far or long or having tunnel vision on the problem and making their situation worse.