Search and rescue member was over for a visit.

One of my wifes Friends and her husband came by for a while last night, I have know him for years, but he just recently got into the search and rescue. He has trained dogs for years and has three now that are used just for that purpose.
He was discussing the work they had to do in Greensburg Kansas after the tornadoes. I can't even imagine what he was describing, horrific comes to mind!!
They are regrouping after all the storms last year and want to establish them to be self sufficient for 72 hours.
Of course lights came up in conversation
He was completely wowed by my 120p, and floored by my E2E. Completely unfamiliar with anything like that!! I told him I thought the 120p would be nearly ideal as a pocket/backup light for that type of work.
I had to show him the site and let him read the list of dealers that support this site and it's members.
I am hopping he will join and can share some of his experiences with all of us, as well as we can share some of our knowledge and help him and his team to be more prepared and have the proper gear for the wonderful service they provide for us!

Cool. It's always nice to have professionals who rely on thier lights come here. They get helped with good lights, and we get real world testing information. Good job on spreading the word.

Always great to have a professional chime in their opinion on a light, especially a nice one such as a 120p.

SAR typically isnt the persons profession, ive been in SAR since i was 16, its mostly a volunteer job. just so yall know.

Yea, i've got some friends involved in our local SAR, it's all volunteer, and just to volunteer there's a list of gear you need to own....several hundred dollars worth of stuff before you start dropping cash on lights.

yeah, here in chattanooga there is a huge SAR crew, because its so conveinent for people to get lost (its pretty much a big mountain town) the SAR team is a bunch of country boys like myself that really dont need half the equip in our packs, we get a call on the cell, and they tell us where, when and how many people got lost or injured and we just go out and search and hopefully rescue. its a great excuse to buy more gear tho.

Mossy,

I'm with ya, grew up in the country and would get several calls a month of misplaced outsiders. No one offered training or tools. Bring your own vehicle, lights, water, food and ropes. Bring em back alive. Wish I had today's lights back then...



Ken

Yup. All volunteeers and depending upon how your group is organized usually a considerable investment in equipment and a lot of training time. In our area it is highly organized with training on a bi-weekly basis (Or more).

sawlight, what kind of lights did he say they typically use in S&R? I would think something like Streamlights or the Pelican LAPD 7060... or whatever. :thinking:

It seems like there would be a lot of similarities between the requirements for SAR and the requirements for lights in the "Lights you'd go to war with" thread.

In any case you'll be able to see a quick summary of what others think are tough, reliable lights. You'll notice that the 120P scored very high.

roymail said:

sawlight, what kind of lights did he say they typically use in S&R? I would think something like Streamlights or the Pelican LAPD 7060... or whatever. :thinking:

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He never said!! But with the AWE he had, I am assuming he was using a Mag?

And yes, it's all volunteer, he said he a "trunk full of crap I had to buy already" then "there is the long list of things I want, I will have to add the 120p to that list!"
He is also looking for a reasonably priced 2m ham rig as well. All of this is out of pocket to him, so I must comend these people!!!!!

i use the same lights for backpacking that i do for SAR, currently a p2d-ce and a princeton tex apex, but in this case i do bring spare batteries.

Maybe not so important for urban SAR, but for rural SAR, it seems like you would need at least one good thrower, if only for intermittent use. "Is that thing at the bottom of the cliff a child or a dead animal?"

Without getting too expensive, I would think some form of Mag85 would probably be a big help. A bit on the heavier side and only a little bit more money you could throw in an [FONT=arial, helvetica]AmondoTech High Intensity Discharge Spotlight N30.
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JimH said:

Maybe not so important for urban SAR, but for rural SAR, it seems like you would need at least one good thrower, if only for intermittent use. "Is that thing at the bottom of the cliff a child or a dead animal?"

Without getting too expensive, I would think some form of Mag85 would probably be a big help. A bit on the heavier side and only a little bit more money you could throw in an [FONT=arial, helvetica]AmondoTech High Intensity Discharge Spotlight N30.
[/FONT]

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Im I guess what you would call rural SAR, and I can clearly identify things at 100m with the p2d on turbo when my eyes are night adapted, which is enough to identify things in ravines, down at bases of bluffs and things such as that. thats one thing about Chattanooga, its dead center in the caving capital of the world, or at least the southeast, there are so many caves and sinkholes around here its amazing. and thats why our SAR group is enormous.

I too am a sardog. I was talking to an instructor at the FLETC about lights and I am telling you that what goes on on this site is far beyond what they are exposed to in lights. Green strobes was about the limit. Now optics..........nuther story. All of you sardogs, what color light do you think is best for tracking footprints? during daylight and night?

mossyoak said:

Im I guess what you would call rural SAR, and I can clearly identify things at 100m with the p2d on turbo when my eyes are night adapted, which is enough to identify things in ravines, down at bases of bluffs and things such as that. thats one thing about Chattanooga, its dead center in the caving capital of the world, or at least the southeast, there are so many caves and sinkholes around here its amazing. and thats why our SAR group is enormous.

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Do you ever use any ofthe Surefire filters on really bright lights for night use?

the surefire F04 is a godsend.

I only search and track with white light. If you're looking for a person, you want to see them and how their clothing and body parts differ from the surroundings. Cutting sign might involve seeing broken branches, broken spiderwebs, grass trails, overturned rocks, age (erosion) and moisture in the prints, etc. I can't see any advantage to non-white colors and haven't seen anybody cut sign with a colored light.

A live twig when broken will slightly flouresce at night. The Terralux in a mini mag seems to work well. You do have to look though.

Just out of curiousity . . . .


What are some of the items which are "required equipment" for SAR volunteers ?



I mean, besides a good flashlight.



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