Decisions For Heroes is a statistics collation software, helping search and rescue teams record and analyze their rescue operations and training. There is nothing to download, however; users access the tool as a web application. Teams enter incident and training exercise reports into this online program, and it will then tell the team how to improve their responses. The software tracks team member qualifications, equipment, and training, and the use of these things against incidents.
The Decisions For Heroes software has a feedback system that allows users to leave improvement suggestions. Typical users include Mountain Rescue teams, the Coast Guard, Search & Rescue canine handlers, Sheriff departments, and urban Search & Rescue teams.
Users sign in after each incident or training exercise to enter their activity report. The software will then automatically add the data to the team's records and update their stats. Rescue teams pay a monthly or annual subscription to gain access to the service. The program was trialed for 8 months with 1,800 rescuers in 5 countries.
One team that uses the Decisions For Heroes program is Inland NW Search and Rescue. INSAR is a multi-disciplined search and rescue organization located in the Pacific northwest and based in Spokane, Washington. They provide ground, high angle, mountain, and water search and rescue support to the region, with twenty-six field-ready team members and fourteen individuals currently in training.
Part of their requirement to become field ready is to comply the Washington State Administrative Code (WAC 118.04.120) as it relates to search and rescue volunteers. INSAR has utilized the WAC guidelines to formulate a comprehensive set of requirements that their team members must complete and maintain in order to receive field ready status.
Joe Coates, the INSAR Training Officer, stated, “One of our greatest challenges was disseminating information to our team members regarding training record status and notification of upcoming activities, as well as enhancing overall communication within our organization. Over the last year, we reviewed numerous database programs and internal web based solutions. We were not able to find one that completely fulfilled our requirements."
Until they found Decisions For Heroes, that is. Coates goes on to say, "Early in 2010, we discovered a corporation based in Ireland named Decisions for Heroes. They are a group of search and rescue professionals who developed an easy-to-implement but comprehensive, web-based solution. This has provided the leadership and team members within the INSAR organization with resources beyond our expectation. The database tracking of an individual’s qualifications, team calendar with auto notification of events, internal communication via e-mail, chat, and whiteboard along with extensive report generation and analysis has provided us with tools that will allow our organization to position itself for the future. Decisions for Heroes has been extremely responsive to questions as they have arisen and are very open to suggestions for future enhancement to their search and rescue solution.”
Information and a video regarding Decision for Heroes may be found at DecisionsForHeroes.com.
Showing posts with label studies and statistics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label studies and statistics. Show all posts
A Follow-Up To Determining Direction Of Sound
My previous post, Determining Direction of Sound During a Search received some very interesting comments, including a couple from Del Morris of the Sonoma County Sheriff's Search & Rescue / Helo Unit. Del wrote an article (2003) about the use of sound during searches:
WHISTLE STOP
The controlled use of sound during searches for a responsive subject is a stratagem that should be a practice of every SAR Team.
At a "Sound Sweep" exercise, we were debriefing our "victims" and our searchers, graphing/mapping the time and location of each "whistle blast" and the victim's perception of direction from where the sound was coming from. We discovered that the distance of sound travel and perception of sound direction was so variable that it deserved further study.
After some additional field testing and research in acoustics, I offer the following suggestions:
1] Shift to lower frequency whistles 2000-3000 Hz or fog horns (marine supply) Plastic horns(sports events) Compressed air horns (marine supply). The higher frequencies are “absorbed” by humidity and vegetation.
The lower frequencies will more readily bend around vegetation and rocks.
2] “Whistle Blasts” a.k.a. “Whistle Stops” can be done during the normal course of a Team Assignment whenever you are "inline" with a drainage *** Contact SAR Base and request a "WHISTLE STOP". SAR Comm. will then orchestrate a "Whistle Stop" by contacting all Teams, giving all teams time to get "inline" with other drainages, and doing a count down ( 3...2...1) to a great blast" just like during a "sound sweep" ... followed by that all important listening period.
3] Teams that are on ridges will be at a disadvantage. Their whistles will be difficult for the subject to discern direction of the team. The subjects return whistle blows or yells for help will be equally difficult for the team to accurately determine the location of the subject.
4] Teams that are at the bottom (below the subject) of a drainage will a)have the best chance of hearing the subject in the drainage and b) have the most accurate direction of where the subject is. They will hear the subject better than the subject will hear them.
5] Teams that are at the top (above the subject) of a drainage will a)have the best chance of the subject in the drainage hearing them and b) have the second most accurate direction of where the subject is. The subject will hear them better than they will hear the subject.
6] Frequency is more important than additional decibels. 3 -110db whistles does not equal 330db. The combined decibel level is only about 117db. Sound level does not build exponentially. Some frequencies “blown” side by side can actually cancel each other do some degree.
DISTANCE was greatly increased with the lower frequencies of sound (yelling was heard a lot further than a whistle). The lower feqs are not gobbled up as readily by vegetation and the moisture in the air. I reference the use of low freqs in Fog Horns. Our “victims” all heard "yelling" before they heard a discernible "whistle" at a time when the "yelling" teams were further away. Whistles seemed to be blended with the crickets and other background noises.
DIRECTION or the perception of direction was more accurate when teams were "blowing" or yelling while inline with the drainage where the victim was. Blows that were blown by teams that were on the sides of hills or tops of ridges ... the victims found the sound very difficult discerning from "forest" noise and on the whole non-directional.
Sound seems to carry better up hill than down hill, better with the wind than against.
WHISTLE STOP can be used during any "phase" of a search for a responsive subject. Hasty teams running trails, dog teams doing area searches, etc. ... WHISTLE STOP is a more effective use of person power.
A comparison could be made between "closed grid" search lines (Sound Sweep) and "open grid" purposeful wandering (WHISTLE STOP) searching methods.
Del Morris
Sonoma County (CA) SAR Unit
Determining Direction of Sound During A Search
As the two women huddled together for warmth in the intermittent rain, they periodically saw the SAR team's lights and heard their shouts, though they couldn't make out their words (or vice versa, apparently). Without a light source of their own other than the small screen of a cellphone, which they didn't try to use for signaling, the ladies had no way to indicate their location other than to shout back at searchers.
With what little battery power she had left on the phone, one of the lost hikers made calls to 911 in an attempt to have the dispatcher relay to the searchers where the subjects were in relation to the team's lights and shouts. Eventually, the cellphone went dead, and the shouting continued. Searchers were having a lot of difficulty determining the direction of the subjects' voices in that mountainous terrain.
Having had similar experiences during SAR missions, when it was difficult to pinpoint a subject's location despite being within hearing range, I thought I'd look into the fickleness of sound and how we as searchers can better hone in on the source of that sound without the aid of a visible light source. I didn't find a whole lot.
First, I read an article called The Direction of Sound, which explains the interplay between time lag, wavelength, and tone. This all makes perfect sense, but it's not always so easy in practice.
Then, in another article I came across about auditory perception, the writer states that a listener can acquire more information about the direction of a sound by moving their head, adjusting the orientation until the source of the sound seems to be located out front, where a human's localization sensitivity is greatest.
So, if searchers stop moving and take time to call back and forth with the subject, turning our heads as we listen to each call, this would be better than continuing to move while exchanging shouts or whistle blows with the person/s we're trying to locate.
I also found an electronic device, a "bionic" ear with a booster dish, which is said to increase sound by up to 40 decibels and apparently is highly directional, allowing the user to locate the source of a sound. Search and rescue is listed as one of its intended uses; however, I've been unable as of yet to find any comments or reviews by a SAR team that's used this technology.
During one search I was on in the company of a SAR K-9, the handler closely watched his dog's ears each time we heard a shout somewhere in the distance. Just as the dog heard the sound, her ears would twitch in a particular direction. Her handler told me this was a very good indication of the direction the sound was coming from.
If anyone has any additional suggestions or feedback on what little I've discovered so far, please leave a comment.
SAR Stories Aplenty At Grand Canyon
Living just an hour and a half from the Grand Canyon, I often hear and read about Search & Rescue operations within the Park. Several of our County SAR team members are involved with the park in one capacity or another--volunteer and paid rangers, a helicopter medic, guides--who sometimes assist with missions involving missing, injured, ill or deceased canyon visitors. One even co-authored the book, Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon,
which illustrates that the majority of the deaths have occurred when people failed to pay attention to warning signs or didn't use common sense.(The guy in that photo is my husband, by the way, but he was just goofing around. But it sure was hot that July afternoon. Still, we saw people coming down the Bright Angel trail carrying no water--nothing in fact--at all.)
Given that Grand Canyon is the second most visited National Park after the Great Smoky Mountains, and the 10th most visited National Park unit, (See: NationalParksTraveler.com) with more than 4 million people coming through the entrance gates annually, it's to be expected there will be a large number of "incidents." Unfortunately, though, Grand Canyon leads the nation when it comes to SAR calls.
Each year, rangers at Grand Canyon National Park perform as many as 300 helicopter rescues, not to mention those carried out on foot, boat or by other technical means. Most of those missions stem from falls and medical issues, the former often from horse-play or the desire for that photo at the edge, and the latter frequently from fatigue, extreme temperatures and underlying conditions exacerbated by the effort of hiking out of the canyon.
According to 2007 statistics, these same factors, along with poor navigational skills and lack of preparedness, lead to nearly 3,600 search and rescue operations in National Parks around the country. According to an article in the May 24th edition of the Arizona Daily Sun, the park service also responds to 16,000 emergency medical calls a year for anything from abrasions and twisted ankles to heat stroke and cardiac arrest. In years past, Grand Canyon has accounted for about 13% of these incidents in the National Park system.
And recent weeks have been as busy as ever for SAR personnel at the Canyon. In late April, a man fell 60 feet when he lost his balance while looking over the edge. Just two days later, two teenagers and a young man were swept away and drowned when they went for a swim in the Colorado River near Phantom Ranch. Then a woman was injured when the mule she was riding fell and rolled over her. Currently, rangers are searching for a hiker who's been missing since May 23rd.
In 2005, Grand Canyon led the National Parks with 307 SAR calls. Next in line was Gateway National Recreation Area in the New York/New Jersey area with 293, and rounding out the top three was Yosemite with 231.
To see the rest of the top ten list, along with the costs associated with these missions, see: Staying Safe and How Not to Become A SAR Statistic in the National Park System
See also: Grand Canyon Search & Rescue media releases
The Mattson Consensus
At the start of a recent search, our SAR Coordinator handed each of us at the staging area a piece of paper, and on that paper was written the following:
I stared at him blankly, knowing only that ROW stands for "Rest of the World," and then he explained:
The numbers one through ten corresponded with the ten numbered segments he'd drawn on the map laid out on the hood of his vehicle. First, with each of us working independently without discussing the values, we'd give a percentage to the ROW. In other words, what's the probability the missing subject is not in the search area--segments 1-10--at all? And, regardless of what some of us believed, we could not assign the ROW a probability of 100%. We had to leave some room for the search area. So I estimated generously low and wrote 70% on my paper.
Next, we'd assign each numbered segment a lettered value, A through I, as follows:
A - very likely in this segment
B
C - likely in this segment
D
E - even chance
F
G - unlikely in this segment
H
I - very unlikely in this segment
I looked from the map to my paper and back time and time again and kept changing my mind, second-guessing my assumptions. I kept having to remind myself that the presumption was supposed to be a "despondent subject" as opposed to, let's say, "stranded subject trying to get home."
After I and the rest of the group of searchers, deputies and detectives filled out our papers, we handed them to the Coordinator, who then turned to his laptop and started punching in numbers as he went through each page.
I had no idea at the time that what he was doing was using what's called the "Mattson Consensus," with an experimental lettering method developed by Dan O'Connor, a former contract helicopter pilot for flight operations at Grand Canyon National Park.
Typically, the Mattson Consensus employs the use of percentages for each search segment. In the end, the sum of each "expert's" percentages, including that of the ROW and all designated search segments, must total 100%, with no segment being assigned 0%. (A zero would mean that the expert knew for a fact that the subject was not in a particular area.)
According to Mattson, it's best to perform this exercise privately, "because it will ensure that even meeker individuals will be able to express their opinion without being intimidated by the more vocal members of the group." (See: Search & Rescue and The Wisdom of Crowds)
With Dan O'Connor's method, the letters A through I are used for each search segment instead of percentages, and then a numeric value is assigned to each letter. This is what our SAR Coordinator was doing when he was entering all of our results into his CASIE computer program, resulting in a plan to first search the segments with the highest probability of area (POA) as suggested by our group's consensus. The computer figures out the segment percentages, rather than the members of the group having to do so.
The following explanation of the numeric values assigned to each letter is quoted from the "CASIE Help: Planning" section of the math.arizona.edu website:
For our team's search, the resulting average percentage for the ROW was 54%, with segments 2, 3 and 9 having the highest POA. I don't yet have an answer as to the accuracy of this exercise in this particular search, because it is still ongoing, but one example of a real-life mission that used the Mattson Consensus is that involving Ranger Randy Morgenson, who went missing while on a solo backcountry patrol in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, California. While searchers did fail to find Ranger Morgenson's body during the mission period (eventually determined to be due to the high amount of runoff that summer), he was ultimately found 5 years later "within an area of high probability of discovery in the original search." Read the story here.
ROW= A-I
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
I stared at him blankly, knowing only that ROW stands for "Rest of the World," and then he explained:
The numbers one through ten corresponded with the ten numbered segments he'd drawn on the map laid out on the hood of his vehicle. First, with each of us working independently without discussing the values, we'd give a percentage to the ROW. In other words, what's the probability the missing subject is not in the search area--segments 1-10--at all? And, regardless of what some of us believed, we could not assign the ROW a probability of 100%. We had to leave some room for the search area. So I estimated generously low and wrote 70% on my paper.
Next, we'd assign each numbered segment a lettered value, A through I, as follows:
A - very likely in this segment
B
C - likely in this segment
D
E - even chance
F
G - unlikely in this segment
H
I - very unlikely in this segment
I looked from the map to my paper and back time and time again and kept changing my mind, second-guessing my assumptions. I kept having to remind myself that the presumption was supposed to be a "despondent subject" as opposed to, let's say, "stranded subject trying to get home."
After I and the rest of the group of searchers, deputies and detectives filled out our papers, we handed them to the Coordinator, who then turned to his laptop and started punching in numbers as he went through each page.
I had no idea at the time that what he was doing was using what's called the "Mattson Consensus," with an experimental lettering method developed by Dan O'Connor, a former contract helicopter pilot for flight operations at Grand Canyon National Park.
Typically, the Mattson Consensus employs the use of percentages for each search segment. In the end, the sum of each "expert's" percentages, including that of the ROW and all designated search segments, must total 100%, with no segment being assigned 0%. (A zero would mean that the expert knew for a fact that the subject was not in a particular area.)
According to Mattson, it's best to perform this exercise privately, "because it will ensure that even meeker individuals will be able to express their opinion without being intimidated by the more vocal members of the group." (See: Search & Rescue and The Wisdom of Crowds)
With Dan O'Connor's method, the letters A through I are used for each search segment instead of percentages, and then a numeric value is assigned to each letter. This is what our SAR Coordinator was doing when he was entering all of our results into his CASIE computer program, resulting in a plan to first search the segments with the highest probability of area (POA) as suggested by our group's consensus. The computer figures out the segment percentages, rather than the members of the group having to do so.
The following explanation of the numeric values assigned to each letter is quoted from the "CASIE Help: Planning" section of the math.arizona.edu website:
Each letter that the expert has used is assigned a numerical value according to the scheme:
A = 9, B = 8, ..., I = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an I.
A = 8, B = 7, ..., H = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an H.
A = 7, B = 6, ..., G = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an G.
A = 6, B = 5, ..., F = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an F.
A = 5, B = 4, ..., E = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an E.
A = 4, B = 3, ..., D = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an D.
A = 3, B = 2, C = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an C.
A = 2, B = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an B.
A = 1, if the lowest letter used by that expert is an A.
Now the expert's total is obtained, and the ratio of the expert's numerically assigned value to the expert's total is that expert's POA for that segment.
An example may clear up any confusion. Imagine that an expert assigns a G to segment 1, an A to segment 2, and a G to the R.O.W. The lowest letter is a G, so we use the third line of the above table. The expert's total will be 9 (7 for the A, and 1 for each G). This expert's POA for segment 1 is 1/9, for segment 2 is 7/9, and for the R.O.W. is 1/9.
For our team's search, the resulting average percentage for the ROW was 54%, with segments 2, 3 and 9 having the highest POA. I don't yet have an answer as to the accuracy of this exercise in this particular search, because it is still ongoing, but one example of a real-life mission that used the Mattson Consensus is that involving Ranger Randy Morgenson, who went missing while on a solo backcountry patrol in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, California. While searchers did fail to find Ranger Morgenson's body during the mission period (eventually determined to be due to the high amount of runoff that summer), he was ultimately found 5 years later "within an area of high probability of discovery in the original search." Read the story here.
Paradoxical (and one not-so-paradoxical) Undressing
Several months ago, our SAR team was called out for an evidence search after part of a human skeleton was discovered on a cinder hill. Our objective, of course, was to find more bones as well as any additional clues or items that might lead to the identification of the deceased. Needless to say, the mission was very successful, solving a two-year-old missing person case.
What our team found was a full set of clothing--jacket, pants, shoes, underwear--along with the victim's identification and credit card right beside the neatly laid-out garments. So neat, in fact, they may as well have been put there only days before, had it not been for their weathered appearance.
Though some of my teammates and I theorized about the woman's death for weeks after the find, coming up with all sorts of scenarios, we eventually learned that the cause of death had been deemed exposure, as indicated in part by the fact that there was no visible trauma to her bones as well as the manner in which her clothing had been placed. Though I knew quite well what hypothermia was and thought I knew the various stages, I didn't recall ever hearing of a freezing person removing his or her clothing. That seemed counter-intuitive to me.
And then one of my (personal) blog readers posted a comment about "Paradoxical Undressing." It was the first time I'd heard the term, and, when I read the article, "Paradoxical Undressing: Irrational removal of clothing threatens hypothermia victim survival," it made more sense.
As I understand it, when a person becomes hypothermic, blood vessels in the outer extremities constrict, shunting blood to the core in the body's attempt to warm vital organs. The lack of blood in the extremities then causes those muscles to tire. As the muscles in the arms and legs tire, they relax, resulting in a dilation of the vessels and warm blood to rush back to the extremities, thus causing a false sense of overheating. And then the clothing starts coming off, because the victim is now "cold stupid," as the article puts it. Ultimately, the paradoxical undressing only serves to hasten the victim's death.
According to Wikipedia, as much as fifty percent of hypothermia deaths are associated with paradoxical undressing, a phenomenon that sometimes leads law enforcement to mistakenly assume that urban victims of hypothermia have been the victims of sexual assault, while rescuers trained in mountain survival have been taught to expect this effect.
Knowledgeable members of my own SAR team explained that, when paradoxical undressing occurs, the hypothermic person will often lay out their discarded clothing very neatly, as was the case with our find on the cinder hill, though I've yet to locate anything online about that fact. (Then again, it's past my bedtime.)
According to the before mentioned article, there's no known case of anyone who's reached the stage of paradoxical undressing having survived without outside intervention. Another article, this one from the Wilderness Medicine Newsletter, upholds that statement, though some who posted comments dispute that fact.
Both of the above articles cite a much-publicized event involving paradoxical undressing--that of the death of James Kim, after he and his family made a wrong turn and became snowbound while travelling home to San Francisco in late November, 2006. Mr. Kim tried to go for help, but his body was later found lying in the snow. He'd removed several articles of clothing, including his pants.
But on a different and happier note....
At least on one occasion, the subject of a Search & Rescue mission disrobed for the right reason. Apparently, this news story circulated around the web when it first ran in June, 2008, but I missed it. Read "Bra Helps in Rescue of Springs Hiker Stranded in Alps" if, like me, you may have been busy with SAR missions when this was all the buzz.
What our team found was a full set of clothing--jacket, pants, shoes, underwear--along with the victim's identification and credit card right beside the neatly laid-out garments. So neat, in fact, they may as well have been put there only days before, had it not been for their weathered appearance.
Though some of my teammates and I theorized about the woman's death for weeks after the find, coming up with all sorts of scenarios, we eventually learned that the cause of death had been deemed exposure, as indicated in part by the fact that there was no visible trauma to her bones as well as the manner in which her clothing had been placed. Though I knew quite well what hypothermia was and thought I knew the various stages, I didn't recall ever hearing of a freezing person removing his or her clothing. That seemed counter-intuitive to me.
And then one of my (personal) blog readers posted a comment about "Paradoxical Undressing." It was the first time I'd heard the term, and, when I read the article, "Paradoxical Undressing: Irrational removal of clothing threatens hypothermia victim survival," it made more sense.
As I understand it, when a person becomes hypothermic, blood vessels in the outer extremities constrict, shunting blood to the core in the body's attempt to warm vital organs. The lack of blood in the extremities then causes those muscles to tire. As the muscles in the arms and legs tire, they relax, resulting in a dilation of the vessels and warm blood to rush back to the extremities, thus causing a false sense of overheating. And then the clothing starts coming off, because the victim is now "cold stupid," as the article puts it. Ultimately, the paradoxical undressing only serves to hasten the victim's death.
According to Wikipedia, as much as fifty percent of hypothermia deaths are associated with paradoxical undressing, a phenomenon that sometimes leads law enforcement to mistakenly assume that urban victims of hypothermia have been the victims of sexual assault, while rescuers trained in mountain survival have been taught to expect this effect.
Knowledgeable members of my own SAR team explained that, when paradoxical undressing occurs, the hypothermic person will often lay out their discarded clothing very neatly, as was the case with our find on the cinder hill, though I've yet to locate anything online about that fact. (Then again, it's past my bedtime.)
According to the before mentioned article, there's no known case of anyone who's reached the stage of paradoxical undressing having survived without outside intervention. Another article, this one from the Wilderness Medicine Newsletter, upholds that statement, though some who posted comments dispute that fact.
Both of the above articles cite a much-publicized event involving paradoxical undressing--that of the death of James Kim, after he and his family made a wrong turn and became snowbound while travelling home to San Francisco in late November, 2006. Mr. Kim tried to go for help, but his body was later found lying in the snow. He'd removed several articles of clothing, including his pants.
But on a different and happier note....
At least on one occasion, the subject of a Search & Rescue mission disrobed for the right reason. Apparently, this news story circulated around the web when it first ran in June, 2008, but I missed it. Read "Bra Helps in Rescue of Springs Hiker Stranded in Alps" if, like me, you may have been busy with SAR missions when this was all the buzz.
Lost Child Behavior
I recently read two stories about SAR missions involving young children. Luckily in both cases, the endings were happy ones, but it did get me wondering about lost child behavior as opposed to that of adults.
First, the two stories:
On Friday, December 5th, a toddler went missing in the woods in Halifax County, Virginia, after wandering away from his home. About 300 searchers, including members of the Commonwealth Search & Rescue team, looked for the three year-old for 21 hours, eventually finding him sitting on a log at a pond a half-mile from the house. The family's two small puppies were with him and were credited with probably saving the child's life, keeping him warm as the temperature dropped to 24 degrees during the night. The boy's mother said her son later told her that he'd left the yard to go "hunting and fishing."
The second story occurred on December 6th near Mineral, California, where a ten year-old boy got lost in the mountains. The child and his family had driven down a dirt road to look for a Christmas tree. At some point, the boy, wearing only a hooded sweatshirt for warmth, got out of the slow-moving pick-up to follow along with the family's dogs. About a quarter-mile further, however, the father realized his son was no longer behind the vehicle. After an hour of searching without success, the boy's mother drove back to the highway and stopped a passing motorist, who called 9-1-1.
By 6:30 p.m., Sheriff’s personnel and Search & Rescue units had set up a command post at the point last seen. Four hours later, there were 12 searchers and two tracking dogs in the field, and eighteen additional searchers and four more K-9's joined the effort by 1am. During the night, the temperature went down to 27 degrees.
At 7:15 Sunday morning, as a helicopter and dozens more SAR personnel were enroute to join the mission, the boy was found in good condition by a member of Tehama County Search and Rescue. The boy told rescuers he'd gotten lost when he left the road and, after walking for a while longer, finally laid down under a tree and went to sleep. In the morning, he resumed walking and found the dirt road again, where he was spotted by the search and rescue volunteer.
After reading these stories, I wanted to know more about how young children behave when lost. According to a study titled, "Lost Person Behavior: Search Management for the Initial Response Incident Commander," children up to three years of age are unaware of the concept of being lost. They generally have no sense of direction and tend to wander aimlessly. They do, however, have good survivability because they often find shelter.
As children get a bit older, in the 3 to 6-year range, they begin to develop the concept of being lost and will attempt to return home or find a familiar place. On the other hand, they often don't understand that a return trip is necessary, so they keep going in one direction and are more mobile, covering more distance, than children in the one to three-year age group. In the beforementioned study, however, all children six and under were found less than two miles from the point last seen.
Young children often look for a place to lie down and go to sleep, especially at night, such as under thick brush, an overhanging rock or a picnic table. This holds true in both of the stories I read, the difference being that children six and under rarely walk out by themselves, while kids between the ages of 7 and 12 are not only more adventurous but more likely to try to "find themselves." This can result in "trail running," which can take them far from the last known point. These older kids often wander up to five miles.
In contrast to an adult, children often won't repond to whistles or calls, in part due to the "never talk to strangers" rule many kids are taught. They have a fear of strangers and perhaps a fear of getting in trouble for getting lost. I recall hearing of a multi-day search for two young boys, who, after being located, stated that they'd actually come to a paved road and saw a man on a bicycle but didn't call out or try to get his attention. Instead, they walked back into the woods.
Some Search & Rescue teams give classes to school and community groups, teaching children what to do if they get lost. One example is Mark 9 (K-9) Search and Rescue in the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas area, and their fun and informative "Sit & Stay" outreach program. The children meet the search dogs and learn how to recognize "the good guys" (the searchers) and how to respond to them.
Another program, well-known in the SAR community, is "Hug-a-Tree and Survive," designed to tell a simple story that teaches children basic principles for staying safe in the wilderness. Visit the NASAR website to find out more about "Hug-a-Tree," including the true story about the search for a 9-year-old boy that inspired a group of SAR members to put together the program.
Hey, there's new stuff on SARstories.com: Three new featured stories, SAR discussions groups, and new links to SAR teams around the world.
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