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The
San Diego Sheriff's Department Search and Rescue Academy
is one of only a handful nationwide. Search and Rescue's
Training Unit organizes and coordinates the Academy with
assistance from a Training Committee composed of Training
Sergeants throughout the Bureau.
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Academies
are scheduled once per year and over 50 people from the SAR
Bureau, as well as, paid members from the department
will participate as instructors and assistants. In
one way, many search and rescue applicants are similar
to Law Enforcement applicants. They come to SAR with
visions of sirens, flashing lights, headlines and,
"film at 11:00". Our job in the Training
Unit is, to channel the enthusiasm that all applicants
bring and develop disciplined and dedicated searchers.
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SAR
Academy's will operate from January to May 2002 and will
consist of about 30 students. These people will come from
any occupation you can name including blue collar, professional,
medical, military and more. Some come to SAR because of
an interest in Law Enforcement, but have found search work
more to their liking. Others have channeled a love of the
outdoors, or hobbies like backpacking and mountain climbing,
into community service. Some others simply learn about the
work in the news or from friends or co-workers.
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Students
attend classes on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and
alternating Saturdays plus a couple of full weekends.
They will receive approximately 220 hours of classroom
instruction and "hands on" field training
in a range of subjects. Topics included are: Introduction
to the Incident Command System, Lost Person Behavior,
Search Theory, Tracking, Land Navigation, First Aid
and CPR,
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Traffic
Control, Technical Rescue, Helicopter Operations, Crime Scene
Protection, Interviewing, Hot and Cold Weather Survival, Radio
Communications Theory and Practice, Wildland Fire Concepts
and Safety Practices and Search Canine basics. The students
also get an introduction to the Medical Examiner, Critical
Incident Stress and learn about the odd meth lab, or marijuana
field they may encounter in the backcountry. And what academy
would be complete without Report Writing? All that instruction
is with an eye toward our main job - Finding lost people.
Upon graduation, the students will have the knowledge and
skills of an entry-level searcher. It is the job of the graduates,
working with their individual units, to expand knowledge in
their specialties. |
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The
Training Unit and committee also plan two "All Units"
training venues per year, where the entire Search and Rescue
Bureau comes together to sharpen skills, update qualifications
and practice on a large-scale basis, the running of a search
mission. Typically 70 to 90 people participate in the All
Units sessions which can run through most of a weekend.
An All Units exercise might recreate a past search mission
or be entirely "fictional". It can include anything
from downed airplane scenarios to high angle rescues with
patient packaging and ground teams tracking "lost"
adults or children. Personnel often find themselves testing
their training and resourcefulness to do anything from extricating
a trapped victim, to plucking an injured hiker from the
face of a cliff.
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Assets
used during an All Units exercise include horses, 4X4's,
tracking and trailing dogs, fixed wing aircraft of the Aero
squadron, ASTREA, the Border Patrol's BORSTAR team, the
San Diego Mountain Rescue Team, R.A.C.E.S., and support
equipment such as Mobile Command 1 and the Logistic Unit's
chow wagon.
Click
here to see the Academy (this PowerPoint presentation
may take a while to load)
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