Becoming a Search and Rescue Volunteer

Ever get hooked on a news story about an unfolding Search & Rescue operation, obsessively tuning in to CNN every hour or so to see if the person has been found? Like that time an autistic boy went missing in West Virginia's Dolly Sods Wilderness. Remember that one? Or what about the nine-day search for two climbers missing on Oregon's Mount Hood?

Sometimes the story has a happy ending, like when a California father and his three teenage kids were found alive, days after getting lost in a snow storm while hunting for a Christmas tree. On other occasions, the endings are tragic, such as the case of the female hiker who set out with her dog near the Appalachian Trail in Georgia and was later found murdered. Sometimes, the victim's whereabouts are known, but bringing that person out of the backcountry to safety and perhaps to a hospital (or the medical care to the patient) is the real challenge. And sometimes there is no ending; the subject is never located.

There are those who venture into the wilderness unprepared and get into trouble. There are those who set out as prepared as can be, but accidents happen nonetheless. There are those who fall and those who jump. Lost children. Alzheimer's patients who wander off. Floods that carry away more than just debris. Avalanches and climbing accidents. And the list goes on.

So, what is it about a particular Search & Rescue mission that makes the national media take notice, while others warrant only a paragraph, tucked away in a local newspaper? Sometimes, there is no public story. But those stories are happening all the time. Lives are being saved in the backcountry, all over the world on a daily basis, and those stories are a big deal to the people involved. On both ends of the rescue.

While some Search and Rescue professionals have paid positions, like members of the Coast Guard, specially trained National Park rangers, firefighters, Sheriff's deputies and helicopter rescue crews, many SAR participants are volunteers. I don't have the statistics (though will try to obtain them) but, with more than 1,500 Search and Rescue teams in the U.S. alone, it's quite possible that volunteers outnumber those who are paid. My own team consists of approximately 100 volunteers and paid Sheriff SAR Coordinators.

Search and Rescue volunteers come from all demographics, with a wide range of ages, current and former professions, skills and experience. On the team I belong to, ages range from early twenties to mid-seventies. We do have medical professionals and firefighters in the unit, volunteering when they aren't on duty, but our membership also includes a graphic designer, an office manager, a cabinet-maker, retired pilots, students, a veterinary assistant, teachers and construction workers, to name just a handful.

Search and Rescue units do have minimum age requirements, but there is no limit to the types of people who volunteer, with all manner of backgrounds and abilities. As for me, I've been a paralegal, a medical secretary, a guide at the Grand Canyon, and a leasing agent at an apartment complex.

Image Credit: Creative Commons by Thomas_Sly on Flickr

In October, 2007, after fifty-three hours of basic training, I became a volunteer with a Search and Rescue team in Coconino County, Arizona. At age 40, I'm an experienced hiker, having completed a 2200-mile Appalachian Trail thru-hike and many shorter backpacking trips. But those experiences were all about taking care of me, watching my own steps, handling my own gear.

Search & Rescue, on the other hand, meant acquiring a new skill set. It meant learning to look for and take care of others while, at the same time, watching out for my own well-being and, as a member of a team, the safety of other volunteers. It meant learning to navigate in a number of different ways and how to communicate on a radio. I had to learn how to track and spot clues, and what to do with those tracks and clues once I found them. There's learning how to use ropes and other rescue equipment, and operate ATVs and snowmobiles. Low-angle rescue, high-angle rescue, snow and ice skills. And the list goes on. Search & Rescue involves ongoing education and practice, and those learning opportunities are often at no cost to volunteers.

So who is qualified to become a SAR volunteer? Do you need extensive backpacking experience, like I had? What about medical training? Or knowing how to rock-climb? Well, those skills sure don't hurt, but they aren't necessarily prerequisites for joining a team.

Some SAR units do have more training and "resume" requirements than others, in part depending on the types of missions and terrain they most often face when there's a call-out. One example would be Oregon's Crag Rats, the oldest Search and Rescue unit in the U.S. To be considered for a spot on the team, each applicant must not only live in Hood River County, but he or she must also have summited both Mt. Hood and Mt Adams. Each organization has its own requirements--or preferences, at least--so you'd need to contact the team in your area to find out their specifics.

While having outdoor skills and experience is the norm for those who apply to become SAR volunteers, there is much one can learn while participating. The following is a partial list of trainings that my own team has offered since I've been a member. These courses, often involving both classroom and field instruction, are frequently taught by team members and most are free of charge. Some are required as part of Coconino County's Basic SAR Academy, which each member must complete before receiving a pager and being able to participate in missions, while other classes are optional (but highly recommended):

• Basic Map & Compass
  
• Basic GPS
  
• Alternative Navigation
  
• Tracking
  
• ATV training
  
• Truck and Trailer training
  
• Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) training
  
• Patient Packaging
  
• Low-Angle Rescue
  
• Helicopter Safety
  
• Advanced Navigation
  
• Technical Team (or Rock Rescue) Academy
  
• Wilderness First Aid

Medical Training

Many volunteers have taken the 80-hour Wilderness First Responder course, offered by NOLS and other organizations, including some colleges and universities. Even those with an urban medical background, such as EMTs and paramedics, find WFR to be a great addition to their training. WFR teaches the first responder to deal with the less-than-ideal equipment, situations and settings often encountered during backcountry rescues, as well as improvise with whatever gear happens to be on hand.

Physical Fitness

There's no getting around it: Search and Rescue is often physically demanding, so a moderate to high level of fitness is definitely an asset. However, while a number of my own teammates are in excellent physical condition, others do have chronic injuries or limitations that prevent them from participating in the more physically difficult missions.

Keep in mind, there are many ways to help a team aside from the primary acts of searching and rescuing. During a mission, not every responding team member hikes up a mountain with a backpack full of equipment or rappels into a canyon, but everyone does perform a function, even if that means simply sitting tight and waiting as backup if needed. Tasks might include driving to and from staging areas so other team members can rest, helping to prepare maps and briefings for the missions as they arise, delivering food and drinks to searchers in the field, or driving perimeter roads to contain a lost subject.

Non-mission assistance can include maintaining equipment, such as vehicles and technical gear, serving on a team's Board of Directors, organizing and participating in fundraising events, representing the team at community fairs and functions, and so forth. So if you have the desire to be part of a SAR team but do have physical limitations, your help and skills in other areas can often be of great value.

If you'd like to find a team in your area, check out the SAR team directories on my website, Search & Rescue Stories. These lists, including Ground unit, K-9 and Mounted SAR, are continuously updated and expanded but certainly aren't exhaustive. So if you don't find a team listed for your area, you might contact one of the statewide SAR organizations that are also noted. In many U.S. counties, the Sheriff's department is responsible for maintaining a Search and Rescue team, so that's another good place to start.

And feel free to email me at ramkitten2000@yahoo.com if you have any questions about becoming a Search & Rescue volunteer. If I can't answer your question, I'll try to direct you to the website, organization or person who can.

Your SAR pager (or whatever means your team might use to call out its membership) can and will go off at all hours, day and night, weekdays, weekends and holidays.

Call-outs happen in all kinds of weather, no matter what you're doing. Maybe you're having dinner with your spouse at the nicest restaurant in town, or reading the kids a bedtime story. Maybe you're enjoying a great movie or just getting ready to go for a jog. You just never know when someone, somewhere, might be in trouble.

As a volunteer, sometimes you just won't be able to respond. You may be away on vacation or in a really important business meeting. Or maybe you're right in the middle of your own wedding. (Not a great time to say, "Hey, honey, can we finish this later? I have a SAR call.") And that's okay. You respond when you can. But, as a member of a team, you should respond when you're able.

Sometimes, missions are cancelled before they get started. Maybe you left the movie theater right in middle of the mushy stuff you'd been waiting for. You're halfway across town on your way to the SAR building, trying not to speed, when your pager goes off again. You fumble for the gadget, glance at it quickly so as not to rear-end the car in front of you, and the code or message tells you you can do a U-turn and go home.

Sometimes, you and your teammates get to the SAR building, load all the gear and hit the road, only to drive a couple of hours to the staging area and arrive just as the subject shows up on his own.

Sometimes, the whole thing was just a bunch of misinformation and there never was an emergency or a lost or injured person to begin with.

But if all of that doesn't deter you, if you thrive on adventure and the satisfaction of helping others, then definitely go for it and find out more about becoming a Search and Rescue volunteer.

As a Search & Rescue story addict, I've been reading a lot of books by and about those in the field, whether volunteer or professional. Certain books have stood out, and I'd like to tell you about some of my favorites.

Okay, so imagine sticking a breathing tube down someone's throat. And imagine having to do that without accidentally inserting the tube into the person's esophagus or breaking his teeth. Then imagine doing this while kneeling on sharp rocks while perched on a narrow ledge, as a hovering rescue helicopter sprays you and your patient with dirt and debris.

Endotracheal intubation is one of the most difficult medical procedures an ER doctor performs, and that's within the clean and controlled hospital setting with skilled assistance at hand. But Dr. Christopher Van Tilburg has also been forced to intubate in less-than-ideal backcountry conditions as a member of the Hood River Crag Rats, the oldest Search & Rescue team in the U.S.

Christopher Van Tilburg is not only an ER doctor and a ski patrol and emergency wilderness physician, he's also an excellent writer. I spent a few days reading Mountain Rescue Doctor: Wilderness Medicine in the Extremes of Nature during every spare moment (even a paragraph at a red light, I must admit).

Along with insights into the ethical challenges a wilderness physician faces and the tools and techniques of emergency backcountry medicine, Tilburg describes a number of suspenseful missions. One account involves a call to Columbia River Gorge, where he intubated an unconscious patient who'd fallen off a cliff. Another chapter concerns the rescue of an injured and hypothermic man who'd fallen onto a logjam. Dr. Tilman also writes about rescuing cliff divers with spinal injuries, rushing to rescue a trapped climber within the "Golden Hour," treating the victim of a rattlesnake bite, and participating in a grisly body recovery at the scene of a mountain plane crash. Tilman has been involved in numerous high-altitude, winter missions, including a much-publicized search for three missing climbers on Mt. Hood.

After finishing the book, my only disappointment was that, in certain cases, the reader is left wondering what happened to the victims Dr. Tillman had worked so hard to save. Did they survive? Then I happened across a blog post by the author, in which he states, "Yes, several chapters don't really say what happens to the patient. That's part of the deal with mountain rescue missions: we hand off the patients to a helicopter or ground ambulance crew and sometimes we never find out the end result." As any member of a SAR unit knows, that statement is very true. The last we sometimes see or hear of a patient is when they're whisked into the sky in a litter, spinning at the end of a 200-foot rope.

To learn more about the author of Mountain Rescue Doctor, visit Christopher Van Tilburg's website at DocWild.net

Among the stack of books I've read about the lost, the stranded, the injured and the rescued, another of my favorites was Coming Back Alive: The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska's High Seas by Spike Walker.

This is a book about eight amazing rescue missions off the coast of southeastern Alaska, culminating in the edge-of-your-seat account of the Coast Guard's efforts to save the lives of five crewmen from the fishing vessel La Conte, which sunk in 100-mile per hour storm winds and record 90-foot seas in January, 1998. Without a life raft, the men are left to drift in the freezing water for hours, as three different helicopter crews try in turn to save them.

Author Spike Walker worked for years as a deckhand in Alaska. He researched "Coming Back Alive" meticulously, through hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors.

This was one of those "I don't care how tired I'll be at work tomorrow, I have to keep reading" books. In fact, I was so intrigued that after finishing "Coming Back Alive," I started following Coast Guard SAR headlines on Twitter with links to their news releases.

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