# Curious about S&R



## Elliot Parker (Jan 7, 2008)

Hi all,
I was wondering if the S&R people could enlighten me a little about S&R. Is S&R a full time job or is more like a volunteer thing where your S&R group gets called in when needed. Does law enforcement (LE) and S&R groups work together or does LE hand off responsibility to S&R groups after a certain point? Sorry if these are dumb questions but I would really like to know more about it.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Not dumb at all Elliot, in fact, they are great questions for new people. 

#1. SAR is a volunteer basis, usually, unless you are in a big area that has rescue employed (usually it is part of a big fire department). And in my opinion, training takes up a lot of your time if you want to be an effective, reliable team. Not necassarily full-time, but quite a bit. 
I have 6 dogs and I work one in man trailing, one is air scent/disaster, two are cadaver, one is training in accelerants and the last is my shooting(bird) dog. 
I work at least three a day and rotate. 

#2 Usually they work together but the search is turned over to search management (who can be either LE, fire dept. or their own SAR team). 
I think search management is one of the toughest parts of SAR. Knowing areas, mapping, lost person behavior, managing a large group of people that some may or may not be trained and a whole lot of other variables to consider can be nervewracking. 

I am sure some others will jump in here with explanations as well. I just quick covered the questions you had....


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## Elliot Parker (Jan 7, 2008)

Thanks Carol. I just checked out the NASAR website and found some other usefull info. Thanks again.


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

One thing too, I think Virginia has a very active SAR community so you should be able to find teams and the best thing is to go visit and talk with some of the teams near you.

Not everyone is in love with NASAR anymore and many participants in the dog section have largely left due to missappropriation of funds by the NASAR BOD a few years ago.

I would google "viginia" "search and rescue" and you will find a whole lot of links.

I think the state has its own guidelines relating to the certification of K9 SAR teams as well.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> Not everyone is in love with NASAR anymore and many participants in the dog section have largely left due to missappropriation of funds by the NASAR BOD a few years ago.


Amen to that......:grin:


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

I am past editing time - so more two cents if you want it.

You have two basically different major options for SAR - both are volunteer. Paid SAR would be in places like Jennifer Coulter where whe works on a ski patrol and does avalanche work and wilderness work in summer. As a volunteer you really need to be on team that has insurance either through the state or the team itself. We carry hefty liability insurance because being trained volunteers does not insure you wil not be sued for helping out. You need to be able to take off work when needed - probably won't go on all searches but the team may have some percentage of searches you need to attend to justify spending team time training you and your dog.

Types of teams:

FEMA-USAR for which you need to be available for deployments for days or weeks - Konnie Hein can give you details on that. These are normally the dogs we see on TV during disasters. I *think* they are paid a nominal fee while deployed.

Local Wilderness team - The vast majority of SAR volunteers - available 1-3 days at a time typically. Callouts depend on the area. The team north of us, established since the 80's gets 70-80 calls a year. We got approx 30 calls last year and we have been in place since 2002 -- growing a little bit every year.

Types of SAR:

Wilderness-included some urban suburban, typically lost kids, hikers, hunters, alzheimer .........lot of calls, small scale.

Disaster - collapsed structure, urban, floodwater-swiftwater ............few calls most large scale

Cadaver - crime scenes, potential suicides, shallow graves, drownings, missing live folks not found within 3-4 days.............many many calls, high demand, some capacity to schedule with LE for *off-work* hours

How Local SAR is managed is highly variable - we always want to have a liason who is a team member**at Incident Command to manage communications betwee IC and the K9 ground teams and sometimes we do manage the search if that is what LE requests, but still really need a responsible Incident Commander from Law Enforcement, Fire, or Emergency Management on site to report to

As a volunteer, it is like having a 2nd part time job that you get to spend your money and vacation tome on. I got a new truck in September and my average miles for SAR work were 600 per month. 

**we learned this from experience.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I got a new truck in September and my average miles for SAR work were 600 per month.


Lucky you to have so few miles to travel. I got my vehicle for Christmas, 32 months ago and I have 73k on it, which averages out to about 2282 miles a month. 

This is for work, fire, ambulance and personal/dogs. But the dogs are the majority as I am only 5 miles from work and town. :-& :grin:


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Carol Boche said:


> Lucky you to have so few miles to travel. I got my vehicle for Christmas, 32 months ago and I have 73k on it, which averages out to about 2282 miles a month.
> 
> This is for work, fire, ambulance and personal/dogs. But the dogs are the majority as I am only 5 miles from work and town. :-& :grin:


I telecommute but keep a log book for tax deduction purposes and the shopping and all those other miles really add up - I was surprised

- ack- 14 cents per mile or actual gas and oil only (it comes up pretty close to that right now but gas&oil are a little bit more than 14 cents a mile on my full size truck)


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> I am past editing time - so more two cents if you want it.
> 
> You have two basically different major options for SAR - both are volunteer. Paid SAR would be in places like Jennifer Coulter where whe works on a ski patrol and does avalanche work and wilderness work in summer.


Just to clarify/add a bit...

My winter work is a kinda novel situation, but not uncommon in ski areas in Western Canada. We (the dog and I) are a volunteer team, memebers of a non-profit volunteer group (Canadian Avalanche Rescue Dog Association). I don't need to work for a ski operation to have this status.

However, I do have a position with a paid professional ski patrol in the winter season. The dog comes to work with me, though I get paid for my patrol work, I do not really get paid anything extra to bring an avalanche dog to work. I get a small (very small) dog allowance, and they pay for my winter certification courses. Of course there is the added bonus of me getting to do training with my dog while I am being paid at work.

Aside from my paid job, the dog and I are available for call out as volunteers through our local SAR group, the Provincal Emergency Program and the RCMP (police). My paid work will let me off work (and I would leave) to attend any non-paid callout. 

Our SAR group can bill the province for specialized services like dogs for example (not much, like 20 bucks an hr?), and I have never asked for the money, instead the money goes from the province, to our SAR group in general. My SAR group pays for none of my dog courses or expenses. (They do however pay for some other types of non dog related SAR courses, and some SAR groups do pay for people's dog courses).

In the summer I do work for a lodge, and have the oportunity to bing the dog to work. This is mearly part of my job negotiation. The dog is not "on duty" as it is in the winter. I just like the dog to be where I am, should I get a call out, my work is happy to let me go to it. That said, should a person go missing at the lodge, I would use the dog... The summer lodge, incures no costs for the dog or its services. I do not train the dog on the clock in the summer for example. Well maybe 5 min of ob here and there, and he does hike with me about 50% of the time, but no search training on the clock.

Nancy and Carol have given you some great info. SAR in genreal is a time and enregy committment even without a dog. Add a dog to that and we are talking both time and money. Worthwile if you are committed to having both the SAR skills and the dog/handling skills, and if it is what you love.

Cheers,
Jennifer


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## Elliot Parker (Jan 7, 2008)

Thank you all for taking the time to explain this to me. It does sound time consuming but definetly very rewarding!


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Carol's numbers are realistic if you can get off and attend all calls. There are a lot of calls I simiply cannot go to. The last cadaver call in the mountains cost me over $100 in fuel alone and employers are not necessarily as keen to give you time off for a cadaver call as a live call. If I had the time and money, I could and would attend more than I do!! 

I am salaried and can "make up" calls as long as deadlines are not impacted or critical meetings are not missed (I once had to attend a business meeting on my personal cell phone guarding a potential crime scene -- then there were dogs barking........) 

Anyway work and financial resources are big considerations -- I think the "average" figure quoted was about $3-$5K per year once the initial start up expenses of training and gear are covered. This does not count the dog and the care of the dog.


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## sharon E. Sansom (Feb 23, 2008)

I second that SAR is not for people who like nice clean, low mileage vehicles. Nor is it for people who love lots of extra $ in the bank. Luckily I have a great boss who says that since she does no charity work, letting me have time off to attend missions IS her charity work. Yeap I'm a charity case, sad but true! 
SAR is for those of us that have 2 sets of clothes, work clothes and BDU"s, never complete without mud, dog spit, blood and bug juice. People who think that sleep is highly over rated (live mission call outs rarely come before 8pm-midnight). People who's idea of a relaxing weekend is working dogs for 5-6hours and think that good food is anything you are served by the Red Cross. We are a wild and wacky bunch and I love being part of it all.


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## Carol Boche (May 13, 2007)

sharon E. Sansom said:


> SAR is for those of us that have 2 sets of clothes, work clothes and BDU"s,


Um.....I wear my BDU's to work.....:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## sharon E. Sansom (Feb 23, 2008)

Ha ha, wish I could, so much warmer than scrubs, and I wouldn't have to shuck clothes in the truck for training.


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