During our last grade SAR eval (DRE) I sortied a ground team to locate a pair of missing hikers with a PLB.
The team was on the trail of the ELT signal up in the hills of the Valey of Fire State Park when someone waved them down yelling for help.
His buddy had fallen and had a compound open facture of his leg.
My team split up...one went back to the road to establish comm with me at mission base and the other when to assiste the victum.
All this time I am sitting at mission base with the IC and OSC trying to determine if we need to call off the SAREX and start a seach for my team as they were comming up on 2 hours with out check in (they were in a black out zone from all of our repeaters AND cell phone coverage).
When my cell phone finally goes off....it is the team who starts passing on information about the incident and requesting instructions and assitance.
The team comm guy would have to drive up and down the road to maintain communications.
Talk to the team via radio then drive 1 mile to get cell coverage....then back to the team for more communications.
We eventually settled on a 15 minute check in...
We eventually go Metro to sortie a mountain rescue helo and a medical evac helo to transport the patient.
Needless to say...Ground Ops and the Ground Teams all got an OUTSTANDING for the DRE!
Plus the team got find and lifesaving ribbons later that night....it's nice to have the wing king sitting right there looking over your shoulder!
This isn't a CAP story, but it is a SAR story. WHen I was in the Guard, one of the young Airmen in my squadron, in the month before, been hiking. He fell of a cliff, broke a bone, and had to get rescued. The next drill he was at, I got up and presented him with a set of water wings, told him they were his very own side-impact airbags....
Here's one. It happened when my SDF did SAR back in 2000. I was a PVT then. Well we were at a SAREX and as we were walking trying to find our target, our 1st Sgt turned to face us to take a photograph. What he didn't know was that there was a small hole. Well he fell in it. Us PVT's tried not to laugh but he was laughing so we couldn't hold it in. Even our XO and CO was laughing. Thank goodness we wasn't hurt.
