Arizona Governor Proclaims April 16th, 2011 Search and Rescue Day!

Thanks to Raul Limon of SAR 10, Cochise County Sheriff SAR for sending this.

In response to a request by the Arizona Sheriff's SAR Coordinators, and in

conjunction with the 2011 Arizona SAR Conference, Governor Brewer has

proclaimed April 16th, 2011 as Search and Rescue Day in honor of the Search

and Rescue personnel in the State of Arizona.

The proclamation reads:

____________________________________________________________________________

Whereas, Search and Rescue is a mandated function of the County Sheriff in

Arizona; and

Whereas, to fulfill that duty, Arizona Sheriffs rely on dedicated Search

and Rescue Volunteers and Search and Rescue Coordinators; and

Whereas, Search and Rescue is a noble endeavor of community service to the

State of Arizona which involves dedication, compassion, and personal

sacrifice; and

Whereas, April 15-17, 2011 is the Arizona Search and Rescue Conference where

Search and Rescue personnel will meet and train to be ready to respond to

fulfill the Search and Rescue motto, " So That Others May Live."

Now Therefore, I, Janice K. Brewer, Governor of the State of Arizona, do

hereby proclaim April 16, 2011 as

*Search and Rescue Day*

in honor of the Search and Rescue personnel in the State of Arizona.

/s/ Janice K. Brewer, Governor

/s/ Ken Bennett, Secretary of State

Way to go AZ SAR!

Maybe Best Not to Taunt the SAR gods

So I guess I’m no longer “Jones’in” for a mission. With three missions over the past three days and local rivers flooding expected to crest today, I’ve had my share of missions for the month. OK, so I was Base OL for the mission on Monday for two stranded climbers. I didn’t do any of the hard work so when the mom comes over to us and gives us all hugs after the mission, I feel a bit sheepish knowing that the three team members on my right did all of the real work.

The next mission was for a couple of lost hikers. OK, I didn’t get to this mission because I had to pick up the kids from school, but I think it counts at least to make the story sound better…

Last night was unfortunately a recovery mission from below a trestle. From a technical stand point this was reasonably interesting as we setup a steep angle raise. The raise was pretty straight forward as we set up a 3 to 1 and a belay. The raise was completed with about 4 to 5 resets and the mission completed in a few hours.

I guess I should have listened to the wisdom of my father when he would remind me to, “be careful what you wish for.”

Jones’in for a Mission

Am I some crazed adrenaline junkie? Is my feeling self-worth or ego impacted because I’m not on the trail or is it something less complex? I’ve already been on a few missions this year, but I’ve either been Base Operations or In-Town Operations Leader (ITOL) or the mission was essentially done by the time I arrived at base. Holy cow, I don’t think I’ve been in the field yet this year! How can this have happened? Now, I’m sitting here waiting for my pager to go off, checking the batteries and making sure the thing is on. Maybe I should have them send a test page to make sure my pager is working.

I find myself in this situation every now and then, not wishing harm on anyone of course, but if someone does need help in the backcountry, well then it might as well be my pager that goes off, right? Even just a snatch and grab mission for a hiker without a flashlight would satisfy my need for a fix.

Oh Man, I feel like a dork! I just remembered I’m signed up for ITOL until Thursday. OK, SAR gods, no missions till Friday. OK?

BTW, I do realize some readers have been quite busy in the SAR business lately and I need to be careful what I wish for.

Organizational Politics & SAR

In many cases it seems frustrating to have to deal with organizational politics in Search and Rescue. After all, we are there to help and we are volunteering our valuable time to provide resources for whatever overseeing agency you “report” to. We are here to save lives right? Not bicker about the various aspects of day to day operations.

Well, as much as I hate to admit it, organizational politics are likely here to stay. In every organization I’ve been part of since my early teens as a Sea Explorer there have been politics. Sometimes it was someone working toward a leadership role and other times it was drama about who said what and how words and thoughts get turned around. Whatever the case, it can seem like one or a group are trying to sway the crowd to go along with their way of thinking. Often times, the reality is that perceptions get clouded because of personalities. Unfortunately, there are times when actions are because of personalities usually resulting in feeling getting hurt and a wedge gets pushed deeper causing a further separation of the unit.

I have learned that, like it or not, politics are part of any organization. However, I have a very low tolerance for politics while on a mission and zero tolerance when a life is on the line (especially mine). To avoid this I have found that finding a working relationship or agreeing to disagree seems to work. While I probably have a bigger ego than I’d like to think, trying to remove egos from a heated topic is often difficult, but ultimately effective. Realizing that politics exist is the first step, the next step is never losing focus of the mission of Search & Rescue, to help people.

Base Operations Leader

During a recent search for a missing skier, I took the base operations role to support our teams going into the field. The initial planning and coordination of objectives and teams was naturally hectic but once we had teams in the field headed into the night for a four hour hike in the radio traffic died down and we had long periods of quite time in the communications van. The two of us in the communications van did our speculation of the mission and what had happened as well as some minor planning in the event the teams located the subject.

Finally the radio came to life with the sound of teams reaching their objective and dropping into the search area. Anticipation and hope draped the Comm van followed by long periods of radio silence. I’ve been in the field when base keeps calling asking this and that telling me where I need to search or what to do next but I have found that to be distracting from the task at hand. In the field, if I need direction or have completed a task I will call in and inform base. So sitting in base not feeling part of the active search I had to remind myself to let the field teams do their job and not bother them with radio traffic unless it was especially important. Of course, I couldn’t think of anything especially important to tell the teams so there I sat.

Then around 3AM the two teams had merged and were beginning to ask about avalanche and weather forecasts (we had done a preliminary avalanche and weather review prior to the teams entering the field, but were looking for an updated forecast). Finally some way to help in the search effort. We jumped on the laptop, evaluated the temperatures, forecasted rain/snow and avalanche forecast and provided it to the teams. The teams decided on a concrete turnaround time based on their current conditions, forecasted warming temperatures and increasing avalanche forecast.

While I wanted the teams to stay in the field so they could achieve their goal both for their success and the success of the mission, I know that people in base cannot make a call based on the conditions teams are experiencing in the field. Also, my responsibility is to do what I can to take care of my team members, listen to what they are telling me about conditions and relate that to the Incident Commander to give him/her a knowledgeable answer about why “I” am pulling my teams out of the field.

While in base I felt an unusual helplessness despite being involved in the mission, but did feel engaged with my teams in the field being able to relate to what they were seeing and doing. It took more than I thought to sit quietly and let the teams do their jobs without interrupting them every few minutes to get an update. I’m not a fan of being in base, but I do value having someone there watching out for our teams and being able to relate field information to the Incident Commander and explain why things are going the way they are. I do plan to be in the field on the next mission. I don’t think I can drink that much coffee again…

Outside Magazine's article, "The Man Who Saw Too Much"

If you haven't seen this article yet, I highly recommend reading it. Here's the link: THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH

Follow up from Blog:

Good Article in the Jan. 2011 edition of Outside Magazine

I thought that looked familiar

I was reading through the January Rock & Ice (R&I) magazine when I came across an article that I thought sound interesting. The article was about emergency communication devices for backcountry travelers. Naturally, my attention was piqued and I started looking at the page with interest. Then I had a feeling that I had seen something like this before and I started thinking ah ha, might be an interesting poll for the BCR site. I had read a detailed article in Lowell Skoog’s Northwest Mountaineering Journal (NWMJ) called, “Climber 9-1-1 – Should  mobile communications be mandatory?” Then the hammer dropped on my cleaver poll idea. The author of Climber 9-1-1, Rad Roberts was also the author of the R&I article. If you are an R&I subscriber, you can get a quick breakdown of the pros/cons of the different devices available. If you want the detailed version click the link above to go to the NWMJ version. There are also some nice action shots of Portland Mountain Rescue in action.

Anyway, the topic of requiring mobile communication devices in the backcountry comes and goes so there may be an article on the BCR site at some point. Last year, Washington State toyed with legislation requiring backcountry travelers going, “above tree line” to carry a mobile communication device, but I believe that legislation died in committee (thank goodness).