Someone on another board posted this video, thought it was interesting. This was back when the kits included water purification tablets.


https://youtu.be/w6k61vpA8HQ


You may have to rewind, for some reason on my phone it starts like 12 minutes in

As someone who lives with anxiety, I know what it means to be to be in such a panic that you want to do something stupid. You have to fight it. I have defeated that urge every time.

Jeanette Isabelle

A good training film that makes some good points, was really turned off at the very beginning when the narrator stated "The search was suspended by darkness" -- an absolute sign of an improperly managed search (and this was true back in 1963, as well). Searching at night just means you have really goo, dependable light sources.

I also have problems with their emphasis on not drinking water unless it is purified. My experience has been - drink the water, even if you can't purify it. You will die quicker fro dehydration than from giardia or similar illnesses. By that time you will have resolved the situation and be within reach of proper medical care. Of course, in the best of all worlds, you will have the ability to purify/boil water and everything will be just fine.

I have followed this strategy myself many times over the years, and it has always worked, especially with the nice mountain stream shown in the film. Although I usually treat water, I have never gotten sick from untreated water. If you have a decent water supply, one huge problem is solved for you.

Still a good film, although the music was a bit hokey...

hikermor: I’ve never served as part of a SAR team, nor served in the military, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question.

Does it make more sense for US military aircrew, who has SAR or CSAR looking for them very quickly after going down, to follow the “disinfect or don’t drink it” advice? I hasten to add that I agree with you that if I can’t disinfect water and it appears safe, I’ll drink it before risking dehydration.

Depends on a lot of variables. If you sent out a distress signal before impact, you will probably be located pretty quick, so dehydration may not be an issue and may be irrelevant. And how likely are you to land close to a clear, trickling mountain brook?

Historical instance- a Navy dive bomber was engaged in a search on the Channel Islands for a missing plane and developed engine problems and had to ditch offshore near Santa Cruz Island. The three crew got out and made it to the nearby beach. They were picked up and home in time for dinner...They did indeed spread a parachute and activate distress flares. This was 1954. Today the sunken plane is a great scuba dive destination.

I got on a bit of a rant because in situations I have faced, dehydration has been a bigger hazard than water borne illness. Of course it is pretty easy to carry means of treating water, so that the issue should never arise....

As always, it depends. These days there is a lot of emphasis on intelligently managing risk to rescuers. When deciding whether or not to search at night, some questions to ask are:

1. Are we searching for a live person, or is this a body recovery?
2. How effectively can we search at night? Even with good lights, one is more likely to miss important clues at night, such as foot prints.
3. How much additional risk to searchers does nighttime bring? Depends on the terrain.

In some cases, the answers to these and other questions might be such that it makes more sense to stop searching at sundown and start again in the morning. In other cases, it might make perfect sense to search all night long.

Worthwhile considerations. Our protocol was to begin a search, typically thought to be for a living person, ASAP. On countless occasions, I drove into a setting sun (often on Sunday) at the beginning of a search operation, knowing full well that it was the beginning of an all nighter.

Transporting the victim, hopefully stable following discovery, was another matter. This operation often waited until daylight. Occasionally I have remained with the body until daylight rendered recovery much more feasible; someone always had this chore.

With regard to footprints, I actually prefer to track at night. the worst case IMHO is tracking in broad daylight with the sun high in the sky and resulting very flat lighting. You can actually detect and follow footprints more effectively with a hand held light, varying the lighting angle and intensity. I recall one operation where we discovered prints and tracked them for six miles, all at night, successfully encountering the individual just before day break

I have done a fair amount of caving and recreational night hiking, both before and during my SAR involvement, and I don't believe that hiking at night is significantly any more hazardous than day travel, although night travel is probably not as fast. I would make an exception if you are coping with unknown terrain, especially if you lack adequate topo maps.

There are many factors that influence the development of search strategy, and prolonged searches often develop into sustained day operations for a host of extremely practical reasons. I would agree that intensive line searches are best done in full day light. But there are plenty of former victims around today who are grateful for a timely nocturnal response.

One result of a vigorous night response is that searchers are present in the search area when rosy fingered dawn kisses the sky. That was when we often made initial contact, an event which would have occurred much later if there had been no night operation

Hikermor,

As I said it is very much terrain and situation dependent. I have only limited experience hiking in the desert SW, but many areas looked like they would be quite reasonable to send a SAR team into at night. And I have no doubt whatsoever that back in the day, SAR teams were much bolder and tougher than today. But some situations are more dangerous in the dark.

SAR leaders continually have to make difficult Risk vs. Reward decisions. Whether or not to send teams out into difficult terrain at night is one of them.

I can do no better than to quote from Tim Setnicka's dated but still classic book "Wilderness Search and Rescue". At the very end of the book, in the chapter "Final Thoughts", he tells the story of Jack Dorn, and a rescue in Yosemite.

Agreed that a decision to send a team into darkness (or whatever environment) is very situation and personnel dependent. Not a good idea to send random individuals, not well equipped, on the more challenging situations.

The environment in southern Arizona is extremely varied - altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 9,000 feet. one can begin in relatively flat desert, and wind up in deep snow amid pine forests with plenty of challenging, intricate canyons in between, all in a relatively short day hike.

Of course, i am speaking of operations from my experience, which tapered off about thirty years ago when my career took me to SoCal. This was before the cell phone era and an operation usually began when an overdue hiker(s) was reported by a concern person with no direct knowledge of the situation. Today operations are frequently triggered by calls from the victims, and much more information is available to first responders.

But if your team can't operate in darkness, how ever are cave rescues accomplished?

I remember the yosemite incident, a very sobering event. Are data compiled which show the accident frequency for wilderness responders? Such would be interesting. I'll bet helicopter involvement will be high on the list....just speculating.

Thanks for the thoughtful response, and agreed on all counts.