Monday, March 22, 2010

Mock Search

On Saturday, March 20, 2010, BAMRU conducted a SAR Intro and Mock Search training. 10 BAMRU members and 22 guests met at 500 Allerton Street in Redwood City at 0800 hours. Participants caravanned to Sam McDonald County Park on Pescadero Road in Loma Mar, in San Mateo County Sheriff's vans and the BAMRU truck.

After introductions and an overview of SAR operations, the guests were split into five search teams for the mock search. Teams practiced basic search operations, and conducted a simple technical rescue.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

BAMRU is Recruiting!

BAMRU is looking to add people with strong mountaineering, snow and ice skills to our ranks. We are part of the San Mateo County Sheriff's office and participate in SAR missions in county and around the state. We are Mountain Rescue Association certified team which means we can travel and operate in all terrains in all weather.

This coming Monday we will be having an open house at 7pm for people interested in finding out more about our team. This will be followed by our normal 7:30 to 9:30 team meeting which guests are welcome to stay for.

The location is:
500 Allerton, Redwood City, CA
The meeting room is on the third floor ("200-level")

This is a great time for people to join as we are have several trainings coming up to enroll new recruits. On March 20th we will have an Intro SAR training which is the perfect entry point for all new candidates.

Monday, March 8, 2010

MRA Recertification at Malibu

These past couple weeks, BAMRU has focused on the annual Mountain Rescue Association (MRA) Recertification, this year held on March 6th at Malibu Creek State Park in Malibu, Ca. The Malibu Recert concerned the areas of tracking, ELT's, medical, grid search technique, and incident command execution.  On all accounts, the event was a huge success; BAMRU attended the event on the heels of the mutual aid response to locate a missing snowshoe'er in the Castle Peak area near Truckee, Ca.



In the week preceding the recert, BAMRU held its refresher courses at the Monte Bello and Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserves, in San Mateo County. The extremely foggy weather provided real world conditions to practice locating ELT's. Here are some pictures from the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve:



BAMRU sends special thanks to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Communications Unit. Six of their top-notch personnel, along with their state-of-the-art communications van, joined us at the MRA recert and the training. BAMRU is grateful for their participation and support.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Luckiest Man in Tahoe

Yesterday BAMRU was called to search for a missing snowshoe'er on Donner Summit. He went missing in a Sierra storm with 60mph winds and 18 inches of new snow. He slept outside 2 nights in temperatures that fell to the teens.

Our searchers waded through deep snow that made travel slow and difficult. Visibility was low. Snow and wind absorbed sounds and covered tracks. The terrain was full of cliffs, thick forests, ravines, avalanche risk. Finding someone in these conditions is quite a challenge.

Yesterday the sky cleared for a brief period, and helicopters were able to join the search. The lost showshoe'er was spotted from the air, just before the helos were forced away by thick fog.

The outcome of a search is never certain. Sometimes the margin is small, and depends on uncontrollable factors of weather, or little details in the missing person's preparedness.

We're so glad that this missing snowshoer was found alive.

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