127 Hours Movie Review

Last week I had planned to hike with one of the sheriff’s deputies in the SAR unit, but that fell through because of a conflict that came up for the deputy. This worked out well for me because I was feeling pretty crappy with a cold. While I probably should have stayed in bed at home, I decided to venture to the movie theater to see the movie 127 Hours, about Aron Ralston getting trapped by a boulder in Blue John Canyon in Canyon lands.

I had not read Ralston’s book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place but I was familiar with the story and had seen the trailers. I was a bit skeptical about the movie initially, but a friend saw the movie and told me that it was done along the lines of, “Touching the Void” which was in-line with the book.

The movie moves along in character development reasonably quickly and has some beautiful cinematography of the canyon lands. I eventually found myself waiting for the big event. Like the iceberg in Titanic, you know it’s coming and it is what happens afterward when the interesting part of the story begins. Once the boulder falls and Aron is trapped, the movie (director, Danny Boyle and actor, James Franco) do a great job of conveying the shock, disbelief, fear and ultimately realization of situation.

One thing I did not realize but mentioned in the movie, was that Aron was a volunteer with Search and Rescue. They touch on this quite briefly, but it spoke volumes to me that he had a feeling that while being part of SAR he felt he could handle any situation by himself. To me, this was a great message for SAR folks, “It can happen to you.”

There was a scene where Aron wraps webbing around his neck and covers his head which I took as an initial plan to hang himself, but I later read an article in Outside Magazine where he used the webbing as a neck warmer and the rope around his arms like a blanket.

The movie continues through the various emotional roller coaster feelings he experiences to his ultimate realization of the solution to the problem and ultimate self-rescue (at least until he found someone).

One thing about the movie I found a bit uncomfortable was that there are several very quiet parts and I became aware of my popcorn munching. My apologies to the two ladies who sat in front of me at the theater. It was probably a bit distracting to be munching popcorn while the main character is cutting off his arm.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie and got a chance to think about what I would do in a similar situation realizing I’d have no idea. But I do plan to always leave a note on the kitchen counter to where I was going. Theater or DVD, this was a good movie with great cinematography and a good story.

Hikes in the Rain

On Tuesday three of us from Seattle Mountain Rescue decided to go for a hike. Nothing exciting or technical, just a walk up a local mountain that we’ve probably been up hundreds of times over the years (Doug had walked up the day before). The hike gains about 3,500 ft in about 3 miles and the trail is reasonable. The weather on Tuesday was a bit strange with a warm front moving in and cold air below. We left the car with the temperatures in the low to mid-30s and rain. As we continued up the trail, we ran into slushy snow and the temperatures felt warmer. We got to the top and headed down after about a minute.

These hikes are usually fun because we get some exercise and are able to talk about various subjects typically relating to our Mtn. Rescue unit ranging from the holiday party preparations to where we should do the next highline training. At some point during our hike I noticed that the conversation level had completely dropped off which is not usual (especially for me).  I realized that everyone was probably entrenched in the misery of the cold wet rain and even the most controversial topic was of little interest to anyone.

As we were about ½ way down, we ran into another guy from our unit heading up. He was completely drenched and looked like he had just come out of a pool. The conversation picked up again, perhaps because we were all glad we were headed down (at least I was). No amount of Goretex or other rain shell could have kept us dry and the temperatures made it bone chilling. As we sat in the car watching the battle of the fogged windows vs. the defroster, Bree said, “wouldn’t it be awesome to have a mission right now.” Both Doug and I looked at each other with apprehension hoping that Bree’s comment didn’t trigger the pager gods.

This hike, with exception for the company, was miserable. Cold, drenching, non-stop rain, doesn’t sound fun, but I look at it as building the fortitude to be prepared for missions when they come. If anything, the long hot shower afterward was reward enough.

Calories to Burn

Have you ever received a page for a search or a rescue that you thought was going to be pretty burley? You get your pack together; grab some high calorie food and water jump in the car and head to the trailhead. On the way, you down the high calorie foods and slug as much water as your stomach can hold knowing that you will burn the calories and need the hydration. You arrive at the trailhead with your bladder about to burst, sign-in and jump behind a tree to do some quick business. After a couple of minutes getting your boots on, appropriate gear ready and team assigned you are ready to head up the trail only to hear over the radio that the subject just walked out of his campsite wondering what all the fuss was about.

For the most part this is actually great news. The subject was found quickly and you have averted untold hours in adverse weather conditions searching for someone. The downside is that you’ve consumed all this high calorie food that you were expecting to burn off over the expected search/rescue. Now as you drive home you begin wondering how are you going to burn off these calories.

This was my experience today and with temperatures in the teens and 10 inches of new snow, I decided that I better eat an extra bar since a search today would be pretty strenuous. Fortunately, our subject was found rather quickly given the conditions. I suppose it could have been worse had we spent all day and night searching only to learn that instead of going for the hike the subject told his wife about, he decided to head to the local watering hole.

Oh well, I guess I’ll do a few more reps at the gym tomorrow.

LCAN - Can it be used for SAR?

As a firefighter I was taught to use the acronym LCAN when giving status reports to the incident commander. LCAN stands for Location, Conditions, Air pressure and Needs. In the fire service LCAN can be used from basic team status to mayday scenarios. Here's and example:

IC: Engine 282 from IC
E282: Engine 282, go ahead
IC: Give me LCAN status
E282: E282 is located on the second floor, top of the stairs side B. Conditions, very hot with heavy smoke, Air (given the lowest air pressure on the team) 3000psi, Need ventilation.
IC: Received LCAN sending Ladder 87 to ventilate roof

I tried using LCAN in a SAR environment recently. Turns out it is better if base/IC knows what LCAN stands for, but they quickly the picture. For SAR purposes, I changed the LCAN a bit to stand for: Location, Conditions (team/subject), Altitude, and Needs.

For Location, I gave my GPS coordinates. Conditions could be used for either team condition or condition of subject(s) depending where you are in the search/rescue. Conditions could be current weather conditions and visibility if you are expecting/hoping for a helicopter. Altitude may or may not be necessary depending on regional landscape, but I found it useful for helping to further pinpoint your location. You should probably use the altitude off of a separate unit from the GPS. Finally, Needs, seems pretty straight forward. If you are hiking up a trail and you have no needs, you can report that. If you have located the subject and find they are injured your needs may be a litter, wheel and manpower.

I'm not sure if LCAN can or should be used widely across SAR operations, but I've found that it provides me with prompts I can let base know in my oxygen starved brain when I arrive at the subject.

Soccer Dad Empathizes With Lost Subjects

I recently took my daughter to her Saturday morning soccer game. The weather was a damp 45 degrees Fahrenheit with a very light breeze. We setup our car camping chairs along the sideline and sipped hot coffee from my tumbler. I’ve found that if I sit at the game I’m less likely to be one of those obnoxious parents (you know who you are).

Knowing that I’d be sitting for at least an hour, I decided to layer appropriately which included a light synthetic down jacket under a heavy Gore-Tex jacket. I also had a knit hat and gloves. While I thought this would be a bit overkill, my legs soon became cold because of the breeze. I grabbed my daughter’s rain coat (she wasn’t using it) and put it over my legs to cut the wind. That helped quite a bit, but for most of the game I was pretty cold.

 My personal whimpyness aside, I began to think about the effects of the cold on a lost person especially if he/she wasn’t prepared for the weather. I had the luxury of knowing I’d be sitting for only an hour and the temperature wasn’t desperately cold, perhaps even balmy for some regions.

The key point I learned was just how quickly a person can get cold not moving and just sitting in the elements.  I will keep this in mind on future rescue/search missions for both prepared and unprepared hikers.

Why does it take so long to get the subject's cell phone lat/long?

The short answer: Turns out that law enforcement must send a fax, yes a fax to the cell phone service provider to get permission for the cell company to "ping" the specific cell phone. Ah ha! It is a privacy issue, glad big brother isn't tracking my Costco runs.

But the person already called 911 isn't that enough? Turns out the answer is yes & no. When a person calls 911, location information is sent to the 911 operator along with the person's name and telephone number. Most phones these days have a GPS chip which is activated when a 911 call is placed, but if you own a GPS you know it takes a few minutes to aquire an accurate location. The 911 operator may get the initial tower triangulation location which may or may not be accurate.

If the caller hangs up or is diconnected on the 911 call, the 911 operator calls back as part of proceedure. If they are able to get an answer, then further location infomation may be obtained. If there is no answer, then the operator may assign the call to an officer who then begins the process of getting location information on the phone. Thus the whole fax process.

There is actually some more detail about which cell companies (network technology) can "ping" a phone, but I'll save that for an upcoming article on Backcountry Rescuer.

Full Stomach Mission - ugh!

The other night my unit got paged out for a couple of hikers who were benighted on a popular hike. They had a Lat/Long location off of the cell phone and this was looking like a pretty straight forward, “Snatch & Grab” mission. The cell phone location put them at 3,800 ft. elevation and in thick timber; though they reported they were on a boulder field. The trail starts at 1,000 ft elevation and gains 3,800 ft. to the summit (4,800 ft.) in about 2.5 miles.

There of course were a couple of issues. The weather had gotten worse and it was now raining and cold. The hikers did not have rain gear, or flashlights/headlamps. On the way there I was managed to grab a couple of spare Gore-Tex jackets and two extra balaclavas. I was also thinking that these guys were probably going to be pretty cold with the temperature at 48 degrees and dropping.

I was the first to the trailhead, signed in and began up the trail. With the urgency of hypothermia in my mind I started off at a faster pace than I normally do for this hike. BTW, I hiked up the same trail the day before. Not only did my legs feel heavy from the previous day’s hike, but I had just finished dinner when the pager went off so I had a full stomach. While trying to hustle up the trail, I got to taste supper a couple times and at one point thought I might and actually hoped I would lose it. Everything stayed down and I managed to finally get into a reasonable pace, eventually reaching the stranded couple in a respectable time.

The hikers were about 50 yards off of the trail on a boulder field. Their actual elevation was 4080 ft. about 280 ft higher than the cell location. They were damp and cold so I offered both subjects a jacket and a balaclava but only the female subject accepted. I gave them headlamps, checked their vitals and we were back on the trail hiking down within 15 minutes. I keep thinking this should have been faster.

All in all a pretty straight forward mission, I only wish I had not had that second helping of squash.