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SARSCENE 2004

A look back at SARSCENE 2004

ONE VOICE, UNITED IN SAR was the theme for this year's SARSCENE Workshop, in Calgary, Alberta. Almost 600 people attended the 13th annual gathering of search and rescue professionals from across Canada and internationally to share ideas, best practices and lessons learned.

Toronto HUSAR team wins this year's SARSCENE Games
by Carole Smith, NSS Games Co-ordinator

The 2004 SARSCENE Games were held on a sunny autumn day at Centenary Park in Calgary, Alberta. Situated on St. Patrick's Island in the Bow River, with the Calgary skyline as a backdrop, this urban park offered a mix of forest, brush and rocky shoreline for this year's competition.

Although there were no international entrants this year, and some teams had to withdraw due to actual SAR missions, a good cross-section of Canadian teams took part from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The judging staff included SAR specialists from:

• Calgary Police
• Canadian Forces
• Edmonton Police
• HM Coastguard, United Kingdom
• Washington State Emergency Management, United States
• National Search and Rescue Secretariat
• Parks Canada
• RCMP
• Rocky Mountain Adventure Medicine, and
• Search and Rescue Saskatchewan Association of Volunteers.

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service of Calgary provided seamless communications as well as the Games command post, and St. John Ambulance was on standby for First Aid. As always, the Games would not have been a success without the hard work of staff and volunteers who set up the stations in the pre-dawn hours and cleared the site at the end of a long day.

The Challenge
The four-person teams were assessed on their performance through six stations:

• Emergency scene management and medical
• Visual search effectiveness (detection)
• Search management
• Evidence search
• Navigation
• Skills relay.

The competition was intense yet friendly. Teams gave enthusiastic and professional performances, with a narrow point spread between competitors. This year's roster included two returning SARSCENE Games Champions: Foothills SAR from Turner Valley, Alberta (2001, 2002) and Toronto HUSAR's "Centre of the Universe" (2003).

In first place this year was the Toronto HUSAR team, with Alberta's Foothills SAR coming in second. Newfoundland and Labrador's Exploits SAR team placed third.

The SARSCENE Games also featured a special award for the best performance in the medical event, sponsored by Rocky Mountain Adventure Medicine Inc., and won by Toronto's HUSAR team. The team received a medical kit and a set of SAMTM splints.

In addition to taking home the Wm. Slaughter SARSCENE Games Cup for the year, the top-ranked team also received a special-edition lifejacket for each member. Generously donated by Nautilus by Protexion, these custom-fitted jackets are inscribed with "SARSCENE 2004 Champions."

Thank-you to all the teams and judges who supported the 2004 SARSCENE Games, particularly for your energy and enthusiasm; your dedication of time and resources; and your willingness to share your SAR skills and knowledge with one another.

Charlottetown 2005
Who will take the Slaughter Cup home in 2005? Stay tuned for next year's event in Charlottetown, PEI. The competition for SAR dogs and handlers is scheduled to return next year. Check the SARSCENE 2005 website for more information as October 2005 approaches.

Volunteer Search and Rescue: Dedication, Challenge and the Way Ahead
This year's plenary, which followed the opening greetings by a number of local dignitaries and high-ranking representatives of the search and rescue (SAR) community, focussed on volunteers in SAR. As Jean Murray, Executive Director of the National Search and Rescue Secretariat, explained, "support for volunteers is one of the directions raised in last year's National Search and Rescue Program and one of the key issues we need to pursue." To help do this, representatives from volunteer organizations explained the state of volunteerism in their organizations and their major challenges.

Alberta perspective
The plenary continued with the view from Alberta. Brad Marshall, representing the SARSCENE 2004 local host organization the Search and Rescue Association of Alberta, took a business perspective to delivery of SAR services by asking "is the service of good quality, is it delivered fast, is it delivered cheap?" Cost is the variable that is sacrificed, and it is often the ground volunteer that pays.

Given the demand on volunteers for money as well as time, the question of sustained commitment is paramount, said Mr. Marshall. His solution lies in giving the volunteer more direct input and authority into how search and rescue is delivered. "This, of course, requires a considerable shift in how search and rescue as a whole receives top-down direction in Canada through legislation and government policy." This would motivate the volunteer to remain committed.

Marine volunteers
Robert Petitpas, a member of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary for over 20 years, became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) this year, replacing Harry Strong, who served as CEO for almost 17 years years. Mr. Petitpas began by noting the changes in the marine SAR world: increasingly large passenger ships on the St. Lawrence River and the Pacific coast, a boom in small boats and pleasure craft activity, new marine conservation areas, often in remote locations, changes in government that affect the marine community, and increased activity in the offshore oil and gas industry.

"The implications of all that," said Mr. Petitpas, "mean we have a higher probability of SAR incidents."

"The Coast Guard Auxiliary has, at this moment, close to 5,000 members," explained Mr. Petitpas. "And we have the same mission as the Coast Guard as far as search and rescue is concerned - and we cover the same area. There are about 1,400 boats, each insured for an average of $125,000."

The problem in marine SAR is not recruitment, but the cost of training new members, Mr. Petitpas explained. "There are also differences as you go across Canada. In Newfoundland, you have a lot of fishermen who do SAR with their own boats, and in Quebec and Ontario you have a lot of pleasure craft boaters. In the West coast, there are often community-owned boats. We really have five different regions acting differently across the country."

In the air
John Davidson, the President of the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA), represented the SAR aviation community, some 3,000 volunteers and approximately 400 aircraft located across Canada. The mystique and excitement of airplanes, said Mr. Davidson, are the hook that attracts volunteers.

"Volunteers come forward for a number of reasons: some personal, some altruistic and some financial."

Regardless of motivation, he added, "we must review their abilities and fit them into our organization to take fullest advantage of their skills and experience." But there is a limited budget for keeping the zones active and providing certification, so not everyone who applies is accepted.

"CASARA has developed training programs for our core positions: pilot, navigator, spotter and search coordinator. Each of these positions has its own curriculum, which each volunteer must complete depending on the chosen crew position. The training requirements demonstrate the investment that CASARA is willing to provide our volunteers while our volunteers provide the drive and desire to be trained. Then our volunteers are crewed with other experienced members and given their final check-out to attain full certification."

After that, how do you maintain interest and self-sufficiency, asked Mr. Davidson. "It's easier to keep trained volunteers with innovation and out-of-the-box thinking than to find and train replacements," he said. If CASARA cannot satisfy a volunteer's needs, then they will continually be looking for replacements, he noted, rather than moving the organization forward.

On the ground
This presentation marked the last for Monica Ahlstrom as President of the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada. She used the occasion to speak from her heart about her observations.

"I was speaking to Lloyd Gallagher earlier, who was fundamental in starting SARSCENE in the early days, and we were discussing how associations and groups really struggled to get along and to build partnerships early on when search and rescue really started to develop in Canada," Ms. Ahlstrom explained.

"There was this sort of turf war that used to go on. However, in the last years I would have to say that I have seen a huge paradigm shift - and that really no longer exists. I think we have a very solid community of search and rescue people in Canada. I think the unpaid and the paid professionals get along fine," she added.

The problem lies in the lack of public knowledge and awareness of search and rescue which translates into a funding problem. "The bigger problem is that people in a decision-making capacity don't know who we are, don't know what we do, and haven't been approached in a manner that allows us to basically step up to the plate and say we need this funding," she said.

"As volunteers in Canada, we have done a bad job of letting our MPs, MLAs and the people who make decisions know who we are. We've also done a bad job of letting the public, to a certain extent, understand how search and rescue works in Canada."

She closed by recognizing the service that both volunteer and paid search and rescue workers provide. "As a volunteer," she said, "I have the option to say 'no, I think I'll pass today.' Whereas the people who are paid have to go out and risk their lives whether they want to or not. I have always been deeply respectful of the people who, whether they are paid or not, have really stepped up to the plate."

"I would like to say," she concluded, "that is has been an honour and a deep privilege to serve with the Search and Rescue Volunteer Association of Canada and to be a member of search and rescue in general, because I can't think of an organization anywhere in the world where there are such great people."

Presentations
This year's SARSCENE workshop had a definite Western flavour with many of the presentations focusing on SAR issues in Canada's west, such as Clair Israelson's presentation on managing avalanche risk; Tony Boschmann's presentation on advanced bear strategies; the Alberta Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS) presented by Greg Curtis and Miles Mozel; and the role of volunteers in the B.C. fires presented by Don Blakely.

Rescue personnel from the Alberta Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS) walk through a field after tending to a rescue "victim." STARS will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2005.

There were also a number of international delegates who presented on a variety of SAR issues around the world.
For example, David Oelrichs of Australia discussed boating safety while Maj. Erwin Deolet discussed the challenges of air SAR in Belgium and a close look at France's Sea Rescue Society - Société nationale de sauvetage en mer - by François Célérier.
Dr. Don Cooper and Jack Frost presented material on a ground SAR detection experiment in the United States while COMO Everette Tucker discussed the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary's program Operation BoatSmart.

Weather tools for SAR
Up-to-date weather information critical to SAR is provided by the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC). After Mike Hewson and Barry Green gave an overview of the tools the MSC uses, there were two suggestions for new services. The first one would provide search managers with a toll-free number to obtain the latest weather information in the search area such as that used by the media, and the second would inform visitors to national parks about recent wind, precipitation and temperature charts in the backcountry regions. The speakers agreed to further discuss the feasibility of both ideas.

Calgary Police Service's HAWC 1 helicopter and crew demonstrate their technique for rescuing a victim when landing is not an option.

Air SAR
Many of the air SAR presentations focused on the role of new technology, including Jim Craig and Les Brace's discussion about technologies for tracking at night, Dr. Jocelyn Keillor's presentation about imaging systems in SAR, and an update of the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system by Jim King.

Marine SAR
Barbara Byers presented information about the Canadian Safe Boating Council's study on mandatory personal flotation device wear and whether it is feasible. Peter Garapick presented information about safety concerns for small, older vessels and discussed a new Transport Canada boating safety program to be launched in the spring of 2005.

Other marine topics included a discussion of the major marine disaster plan (MAJMAR) by Derek Smith and marine simulation programs in SAR by Billy Bean of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Capt. Tony Patterson of the Marine Institute in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Ground SAR

SAR Techs demonstrate their skills after jumping from a Canadian Forces Buffalo aircraft.

Many of the ground SAR presentations focused the volunteer role in SAR, a follow-up of the plenary, and others discussed national training standards, ice rescue, the RCMP police dog service and the First Nations' role in search and recovery.

Linda LeDuc and Sgt. Tim Charlebois presented information about the joint Ontario Provincial Police - Alzheimer Society of Canada project, Safely HomeTM, which facilitated the creation of a search pre-plan manual for long-term care facilities for Alzheimer patients.

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