This year, I am in charge of organizing my SAR team's annual meeting. We're going to do all sorts of fun things related to SAR throughout the upcoming weekend. Mantracking, knot practice, advanced compass workshop, swiftwater rescue primer, night searches, canine stuff, proper firearm handling (unloading <g>), high/low angle rescue techniques, etc.

So basically we have lots of stuff to talk about and I am lucky to have other volunteers that will take care of their given aspects.

I am in charge of organizing the search simulation part of the weekend. This is scheduled to last a whole afternoon and I wish to make things interesting for both new and experienced searchers. In the past, i've organized a few of those simulations, but they were modest. An hour or so before the actual event, we simply went in the woods to hide some clothing items, beer bottles, and so on. After that, we would simply assign specific areas to the teams and would monitor their progress over VHF radios.

I'd like to spice up things a little and make things more fun and most importantly, feel "new" to my people. I was thinking, maybe change the course of things during the afternoon, for example, asking a team to change course and perform a specific task... things like that.

I'm pretty exhausted from all this preparation and I was wondering if any of you had ideas that I could implement within a limited budget and time for preparation? That could be helpful and I would be delighted to try some new things I haven't thought about yet.

Thank you!

+1 on Nighthikers ideas...all good.

I'd try to throw something in that required confined space work. Dark, tight quarters can mess up even the best rescuer.

Halfway into the exercise "disappear" a member of the team without explanation and watch the team react, respond, etc.

One of the search dogs starts to show signs of rabies? *chuckles*

On a serious note, like NightHiker suggested, maybe have it turn into a recovery. Or a dry hole.

I really like dweste's idea of disappearing a team member half way though the exercise.

Here are some other ideas:
-for the person(s) that your searching for, have them spend a night out before the search begins. You will get a bit closer to realism for the search party (at least for the victim(s) - if they aren't savy outdoors!!!). This is for the junior of the team ;-)
-adding an injury to one or more of your team members through the exercise (i.e. broken leg, etc), which affects the numbers searching.
-add another search victim somewhere/anytime through the exercise, like the victim's young son/daughter
-loosing communications? Not sure about this, does it ever happen?

Just ideas, and not sure if any are appropriate.
Kris

I should read everything before posting!!! I just read NightHiker's post and some common points. Sorry man.

Not to be depressing, but what about finding a body, either an unexpected find or the person being searched for? Is there a procedure to secure the scene in case of "foul play?" (for future LEO investigation). Emotional trauma to searchers who find a corpse? etc.?

Loss of critical gear, or presenting a situation the team isn't equipped for.

Perhaps a number of “lost” individuals, some with injuries requiring litter evacuation with some low-to-steep incline or water access. This way you incorporate multiple skills and varying levels of incident management.

Pete

Forest fire beginning in the area is my thought-
Hasty fire extinguishment?
Perhaps assessing fire direction and escape in some direction that isn't back to the vehicles?


Also-
Rabid dogpack encounter?

Communications problems. Force a situation where teams need to relay messages because the team in question is out of range...this can really mess people up if they haven't done it before.