Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 22:46 Jeff Lehman West Valley SAR's "Run for Rescue" and Safety Fair is April 30, 2011 at Chaffey College. This is a USTAF-sanctioned event. Download the flyer for more info.
Run for Rescue, West Valley SAR in News Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 9:06 Jeff Lehman While walking his horse over an old dam, Gila County Sheriff's Posse member, Larry Woolsey, 77, lost his footing and fell approximately 20 feet. Read the article in the Payson Roundup.
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 15:37 Jeff Lehman OHV training is being offered by Bear Valley SAR. Read the flyer for details. Contact Mike Westover to sign up.
Bear Valley SAR, OHV in News Monday, March 7, 2011 at 23:17 Jeff Lehman On Saturday, March 6, all MRA-accredited rope rescue teams in California converged on the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine to demonstrate their rope rescue skills. The Cave Team and West Valley SAR participated in the event as part of their annual MRA recertification. Fully-accredited MRA teams must pass an annual recertification in one of the three disciplines: technical rope rescue, search and tracking, and winter/alpine rescue. This year's event was hosted by Ventura County SAR.
View CRMRA 2011 Recert in a larger map
Each team provides two evaluators and a victim, who are used in the evaluation of other teams. For example, one of our evaluators proctored the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit's test, while the other evaluated Sierra Madre SAR. After an hour-long evaluator training session, there was a short briefing, and the teams made their way to the testing locations.
The typical scenario involves a patient raise and lower with careful attention to the medical care provided. Due to the terrain in the region, it was necessary to perform a number of operations to move the victim to an appropriate location. The evaluators assess 6 areas: Leadership, Operational Plan, Communications, Safety, Medical, and Technical. Each of these areas are assigned a score of 1-3, and a minimum passing score is 12. At the conclusion of the scenario, the evaluators debrief the team, and provide the score. If a passing score is not received, then the team must re-test at a later date.
Ventura County SAR finished the day with a barbeque of tri tip and chicken, which tasted great after a day in the field. Organizing such an event is a lot of work, and they did a great job. I am continually amazed at the number of well-trained, dedicated, SAR resources that are available to the residents of California. It is truly a sight to behold.
Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 23:24 Jeff Lehman Riverside County requested assistance with the search for a missing skier on Mt. San Jacinto on February 21. This call came right on the back of a call to the Baldy area for a missing hiker, and is the typical pattern whenever there is a signficant storm. A similar scenario occured early in January when there were back-to-back and simultaneous searches for a snowboarder on Baldy, hikers in Lake Elsinore, and a hiker on San Jacinto.
Members of SB Mountain SAR, the Cave Team, and Rim SAR responded and were assigned to search likely areas near the summit and Round Valley. The skier was eventually located in the Willow Creek drainage area by members of Sierra Madre SAR and the China Lake Mountain Rescue Group. A unique aspect of this search was the request for backcountry skiers. The conditions were optimized for significant "postholing", so travelling by skis was more efficient.
Riverside County press release
View Search for Backcountry Skier on Mt. San Jacinto in a larger map
Tuesday, February 15, 2011 at 9:41 Jeff Lehman The Black Diamond ATC, ATC-Guide, ATC-XP, and ATC-Sport, as well as the Petzl GriGri2 are the first devices to receive UIAA certification. Read the article on the UIAA's site for details.
Monday, February 14, 2011 at 10:57 Jeff Lehman Petzl has recently discovered counterfeit Chinese versions of a number of its products. Please read their statement regarding this discovery.
Saturday, February 12, 2011 at 20:47 Jeff Lehman SB Mountain SAR is hosting a PVS class for 3 weeks in March, finishing with a test on March 27. TRBC is around the corner in April, so if you are looking to take TRBC, this is your opportunity to take care of the PVS requirement.
The PVS class runs Tuesdays and Thursdays, beginning March 8th, from 1800-2200hrs. Read the flyer for details.
Contact John Metzger at his sbsar.org email address for more info.
PVS, SSB Mountain SAR in News Sunday, January 23, 2011 at 12:15 Jeff Lehman I decided to map all of the missions for the Cave Team last year, and found it to be pretty neat. I thought that it would be interesting to make a map of all the missions for the entire county. This is where I need your help. Recently, I sent an email to all of the team commanders explaining the details, but I figured that I would post something here too.
After your team gets a call, please take a moment to go to reports.sbsar.org/missions and click on the "Submit Report" link in the upper right corner. There, you will find a simple form that asks for the name of the mission, short description, your team, and your name. The key is to place the event on the map. You can scroll around on the map, input an address, or input a set of coordinates (acceptable units are decimal degrees, but there is a UTM-Lat/Lon converter). Once your form is submitted it goes into the hopper for review (anything mission-related needs to be reviewed prior to posting).
If you can't remember this URL, there is also a link to the mission reports page at the top of the page at sbsar.org.
In addition to the form, you can also just email the report to missions@sbsar.org. Please be sure to include a description and, most importantly, a location. You could do this from the field if you have cell coverage and an appropriate phone/plan.
Drop me a line at my sbsar.org email address if you have any questions and/or comments. The only way that this works is for you to do it. Please don't assume that somebody else will. It will take you about 3 minutes to do it, so it doesn't take long. The map below is the live map of the reports to date.
Mission Reports in News Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 22:03 Jeff Lehman I would like to start off by wishing all of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2010 was a great year for SAR and all of us on the Board of Directors of the IESARC are very excited about the upcoming events and changes coming in 2011. This past month was a very eventful month. The Yu search in Baldy was conducted very well and attended by a number of our SAR personnel. The results were not what we wanted, but successful in its own way.