To:
SAR-DOGS@APPLE.EASE.LSOFT.COM
Subject:
[SAR-DOGS] Mission
-- Part: 1 --
To the list:
I would like to share some information about an interesting
mission that we had last night.
So many times we go on missions not finding who we are
looking for and sometimes having our worst fears confirmed.
This mission was one that you dream about when everything
goes right and that doesn't happen very often, so I wanted to
share first hand information with everybody to let you know that
they do actually happen sometimes.
Here is the scenario:
Dispatch calls us to a remote location in Warrick County,
Indiana.
The incident starts by a concerned neighbor finding her friends
mini-van parked at a cemetery a few miles away from her home
while she was driving to her own home.
After her concerned friend checked the cemetery and was unable
to find her neighbor, she then went home to check her house
and was unable to find her there either.
Her friend contacted her family and found out that at about 10:00
am that morning that she had been in court going through a
divorce hearing. Needless to say, she was very depressed. Her
friend then called the sheriffs department who responded to the
cemetery and checked the van. When the sheriff inspected the
van, they found several prescription bottles and some of them
were empty.
At this point, the sheriff contacted the local volunteer fire
department who responded to the scene and also requested our
search team to respond.
The time is now 7:00 p.m. and we arrived at the scene and found
quite a variety of E.M.T's, firefighters and deputy sheriffs staged
at the cemetery waiting for instructions.
Here is what the search area consisted of:
we were in the
middle of strip mine area with several small lakes, two to three
miles north and south, small trails going into those areas.
Due to the limited amount of daylight that we had left, we decided
to do hasty searches of as many trails as possible before it got
dark. At this point, we only had one trained air scenting dog at
the scene. The handler was Evelyn Brady and K-9 Axe. We had
several more team members and dogs in route to the scene.
The key piece of information came from the deputy sheriff who
interviewed the family and found out that this lady had recently
tried to buy the property to the south and this was one of her
favorite places. The decision was made to send K-9 Axe with
deputy sheriff as support to the trails to the south and check the
lakes a couple of miles to the south. We also split up the
firemen and let them do a hasty search of the lakes to the north.
About 10 minutes into the search, the rest of our search team
members arrived on the scene. About 15 minutes into the
search, Team #1 radioed back that they had found heel and
shoe prints on the trail. We were getting ready to deploy two
more search teams East to parallel the trail to the South.
Nineteen minutes into the search, Team #1 radioed back that
they had a 'find'.
The initial report from Team #1 indicated that the patient was
barely able to talk, unable to walk and was in need of medical
attention.
We sent our team members at the staging area, in with medical
equipment and a four-wheel drive vehicle to transport the victim
out. We also had a medic unit respond to the scene. By
the
time our group packaged and moved the patient back out to the
road, the ambulance was already on the scene.
This mission had a positive outcome due to good
teamwork….and a little luck.
I just wanted to share this outcome with everyone because
sometimes we need to hear about the happy endings.
K-9 Axe got a extra treat when they got back to base
http://OVSARD.evansville.net/brady.html
Be Safe,
Cliff Weaver SAR TECH 1
Search Manager
Ohio Valley Search and Rescue
http://OVSARD.evansville.net
-----------------------------------
This message was sent at:
Thu, 30 May 2002 00:25:57 (EST)
©2002 Ohio
Valley Search and Rescue , Inc.