On February 19th, I attended a search and rescue training event with Central Mass Search and Rescue to get some first hand experience with what it is like to be a searcher. Coincidentally it happened to be the coldest day of the year thus far, bringing the mercury below -10ºF before accounting for wind chill. Needless to say the weather brought with it unique challenges that the team faced during the numerous exercises.

Some of the key insights gathered from the training are:

Stokes basket is, heavy, cumbersome, slow, missing ergonomic features, easy to hurt patient when sliding them in, not insulated, if they could be set on wheels when not on rough terrain it would be great.
Patient was cold even after being placed in hypo wrap
Coms was not immediate. Distinct time delay between responses. Radios only work one way at a time. When two teams try to check in at the same time it doesn’t work.
Keeping search lines straight, while seemingly a simple task was often difficult in practice.
Lots of standing around waiting to be told what to do.
Communicating specific information, such as location, patient condition, was very slow and not very accurate.
One the patient is in the stokes being carried out there is no way to keep track of vitals.