Your concluding example reminds me of a search over twenty years ago, when we (Pima County SAR) were just beginning to integrate math into our operations, especially POD. We had a search for a missing guy, and we were rolling along, confining the search area, using both ground teams and air searches, and working up our probabilities on a state of the art calculator. After about five hours, we looked at the probabilities, and our coverage, and were concluding that our subject was not within the area. This was confirmed right on cue as a call came from a sheriff's investigator that the subject had been located at home. We always included background investigations on any search that went beyond five minutes.

I am surprised that there is controversy over the use of air resources. Nothing is perfect, not even well trained ground troops. To me one of the great pleasures of SAR operations was the way we cooperated with both state and AF choppers, often dramatically increasing our efficiency and/or coverage, with frequent beneficial effects for the victim. It is a shame that people get focused on any one technique as "the" way to save those in need. I love helos and planes, but it didn't keep me from pounding ground to get to the victim.

Maybe it has to with the size and diversity of the group, but we never had to "ration" our resources on an initial response; in fact, we often drew positive responses because it was our policy to go out immediately in whatever conditions were prevailing. If the search continued, we usually had follow on folks who were able to keep the effort going.

>>>when the family members and the news media observes your seachers standing down for 12 hours, they will hang you out to dry.

I can certainly sympathize with that. Otoh, it's a shame that we are sometimes forced to accept a non-optimal solution (read: more likely to get the searchee killed) because of uninformed family or media pressure.

Not having done this for real, I'm hesitant to play armchair quarterback. But in the exercise scenario, I still think I'd put all my searchers out there for the first 7 hours or so (at least enough to search the 1 mile circle closest to the Position Last Seen) and hope that, if we came up empty, we'd be getting reinforcements the next day, rather than cut my chances of an early success in half. But, as I say, I've never been in the position of having to justify my decisions to an anxious parent.

I agree, I'd very much like to impress on them the importance of "doing the math" and coming up with a real plan, rather than just going out and tromping through the woods.

We're going to give it a rest for a couple of weeks - variety being the spice of life and all - and go back to first aid training tomorrow. A week from tomorrow I have my first ARES meeting (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) so you may see me out there on a SAR mission yet. :-)

The controversy of air support may be just a regional issue, on one search we used helicopter with FLIR with less than desirable results. The target being a bright red canoe along a river in daylight conditions. Same search at night with dense fog, air crew had difficulty locating base camp using the FLIR (may have been the fog). We also were involved in a research study trying to develop POD values for different aircraft, this to had undesirable results. On the other hand we have worked with CAP air crews in other areas and they turned out to be a valuable resource. In any event people in our area have a mind set that aircraft and K9's are a solve all resource.

Thanks
Ted Fisher
VCSAR Coordinator

In all reality we start with local resources first and begin an organized call in of other area teams to arrive when our teams are standing down.

The most difficult thing about Search and Rescue is calling off the search when the Math tells us its time.

Ted Fisher
VCSAR Coordinator.

My experience in this area is somewhat dated, about twenty years ago for really extensive work. We (Southern Arizona Rescue Association and Pima County) did a controlled study evaluating the POD for various subjects in a desert environment. Our main finding was that passive subjects, even plainly exposed in the open, were far less likely to be seen than actively signaling subjects. Even in best case scenarios, there was an uncomfortably high likelihood that the victim could be missed. Basically, we never downgraded an area until it had been air and ground searched. In the end, so much depends on the vigilance and concentration of searchers, both aerial and ground.

I would argue that there is no solve all resource and circumstances always change. I recall a search for a young boy (about nine). About midnight, I learned that the kid had been in a school class to which I had given an outdoors survival presentation about a month earlier. Talk about personalizing the operation!

Anyway, we found our lad early the next morning in an area quite capably searched the evening before. He had listened to me - when night came, he found a small rock shelter and was sleeping away when the team came through. He had woken up when the next effort came through. I always thought dawn after the first night was the "Golden Time." Visibility returns, everyone starts stirring, and people find one another.

Implications for seach strategy - immediately deploy teams, and go all night, or at least get into the search area and take a quick nap. Plan for new crews to hit the field right at first light and really hammer hard. This is also a really good time for air operations. If 10 AM comes and goes, you may have an epic on your hands.

Media pressure is a funny thing. On one search, our coordinator carefully explained that he was calling us out only "to fly the flag" because skilled Border Patrol trackers had traced our subject, a rather spacey elderly gentleman, to the road where he had gotten in a car. The "real" search was focusing on downtown.

Guess what? We found our guy about two hundred yards from the road after about twenty minutes.

I think the main way to avoid media and family criticism is to start quickly, keep going, and be receptive to new strategies and techniques. We knew we were in the terminal phases of an epic when we started listening to the clairvoyants. But we did, because, what the hell, we had tried everything else.

I agree 100%