Sports - LASAR at the ready

The search season obviously coincides with the coming of warm weather and the increase in outdoor activities. Hiking, camping, fishing and just plain taking a stroll in the woods result in people going missing, be it for only a few hours or for longer periods, in some cases, forever.

That’s what Lower Adirondack Search and Rescue was created for and that’s what we prepare ourselves for.

One of the most important things we do as a group is our self-training. Unlike other SAR teams whose members go through the state’s certification process and then just sort of sit around waiting to be called out by the Rangers for a search, LASAR prides itself on its program of continuous training.

Just recently, we held an overnight winter survival course instructed by Paul Terpening and Joe Juliano, during which some of our members went into the Adirondacks, built their own shelters and spent the night out with air temperatures near or below zero. All to learn what to do and how to survive should we be called out and had to face this possibility. Paul, by the way, is a survival instructor for the U.S. Air Force and has trained pilots and other personnel around the world. This training program was taught by members who have had experience in winter camping and survival in order to help continue our team’s preparedness.

In addition to this winter training program, we also recently held a cross country navigation training program conducted by two of our founding members, Pete Benoit and Pat McGinn. The compass remains our number one piece of equipment and it is a MUST that each of our members has at the very least, a basic working knowledge of how to properly use one along with a topographical map. Some of us have used maps and compasses for years, but we still attend this training session with Pete and Pat to “brush up” upon our skills and to assist in the training of those who are not proficient. More and more, the Rangers expect us to be able to go into the wilderness without the worry of getting ourselves lost and becoming a second subject of a search.

When I talked about this training with a couple of hunting buddies of mine, they said that they too had training with a compass…way back when they were in the boy scouts. Trust me when I tell you that a couple of them are old enough that they can barely remember when they were boys, much less their initial training with a compass. So, I gave them a little test. I asked them a few questions to determine what they knew…or thought the knew.

For example. Do you know how to set the declination on your compass? What is the first thing you do when you are using a map and a compass together? If you are one degree off, by how much will you miss your targeted destination if it is only a quarter of a mile away? How about a mile away? What are degrees, minutes and seconds? And then I asked them the big one, if all you have is a compass and a map and you think you are lost, can you determine where you are and how you are going to get home? How about in the dark?

By the end of the discussion, the room got more and more quiet as each determined that they didn’t have the proper answers and that it they found themselves in a situation where their life might depend upon their skills, they might not make it. I can assure you, that will not happen to any LASAR member who sits through this training with Pat and Pete.

To Pat and Pete, and to Paul and Joe, to our Training Officer Neil Carter, and to all those in LASAR who have the outdoor skills to survive and share them with anyone interested in learning how to do it, I send my personal thanks and appreciation. And I know, without question, I speak for the subject of our next search and every one after that. Thanks guys!

See you outdoors!