welp, what are the most common types of rescues you encounter, and what are the most common injuries you've seen? What are the worst habits of people that you see leading to a need for your services?
I'm going to breack this up by question. Some of it may run together though.
Injuries: Mos of the ones I've seen are injures of the leg. Sprains and breaks are the most comman. The other most comman are injuries from falls. These are much worse and can include back and pelvis injuries. From what I've seen and heard these people are generaly pretty busted up.
Most comman types of searches: Evidence/crime scene, missing persons, rope rescue/injuries and downed aircraft/ELTs.
Evidence and crime scene are pretty straight forward and I really don't feel at liberty to discuse these. This much I know is that I have been on some that were actual crime scenes and others that were not but were treated as such until a investigation and determination can be made. I know of one I can talk about because it wass determined to be a suicide and not foul play. I could go into more detail as to informing the general poplulace of what to do if they encounter human remains but I'll hold off until I get an actual request.
Most of our calls are for the standard missing person or an injured person. On of the areas we respond to is a geographical feature known as Cape Horn. We have been called out several times to recover persons that have fallen to their death. Some fall from the overlook on the side of the highway and others have fallen from the trail. The ones that have fallen from the overlook decided for what over reason to climb over the hand rails/retaining wall. The trail itself is not an official Forest Service trail and is is very narrow and has loose footing. One of the calls we had last year almost resulted in the loss of a SAR member while extracting the deceased. We would like to see this trail closed until improvements can be made but so far no luck.
Then you have the standard missing hiker. The majority of these are people who ventured out alone, very poorly equiped, and/or get sperated from the group. I could name numerous examples but we would be here all day.
The other call we seem to get a lot of involve young people and fast moving rivers. This mainly a sumer time call and consists of falls and drownings. The Lewis and Washougal rivers seem to attrack the most people.
Recently we have been getting more calls for Azthermer(sp?) patients, children esp Autism, mentally challanged and irrational behavior. Most of these involve walk aways from home or a care facility. These are generally suburban but due to the vulnerable nature of the subject require an rapid response and intervention. We had a guy take off into the woods acting irrationally about a month ago. That one was about a 7 on the wierdness scale.
There are a few things that can be done to help the authorities and searchers if you have a family member that falls in this classification. Have a kit with good pictures and discription. Have them finger printed. Have a file with there favorite hangouts, restraunts, bars etc... Try to have this preassembled in the event you need it. There is a program that is on a thumb drive that has an electronic version. Not sure where they guy i saw withit got it from. There is also a program called Project Lifesaver. Basically it is a radio collar for humans. So far it has had a very impressive success rate.
Alot of our searches boil down to people not using comman sense and generally not thinking before acting. It never ceases to amaze me the stupid things people do. In our society where thrill seeking is glorified I'm afraid the number of calls for injuries/deceased will only increase.
We see alot of people who are not prepared for the unexpected. Even when I recreate on the local day hiking trails most people are poorly equiped for a unplanned event. I think the attitude is that there ae plenty of people on the trail and civilization is only a short distance away. There was a search recently on the Oregon side of the Gorge where a couple of guys decided to take a "short cut" and ended up spending a night or two before the walked out.
Aircraft/ELTs: I also work with the WSDOT Aviation Division as a Observer, Radio operator and ELT tech. So far most of our ELT hunts have been false alarms. The only down side is we get them about 6 pm on a Sunday night. Our furthest was 3+ hrs away one way. I've come home a few times just in time for the wife to go to work.
Ok I think that is enough for now
