Each of us had different events in life that brought us here.  The foreword to my own SAR story began with a chance encounter with the aftermath of a motor vehicle accident.  While in spite of my best efforts, the badly injured victim still managed to survive, I determined at that point I needed to take a more proactive role in helping people.  Although my motivations I think were good ones, it became obvious before long that it would take more than good intentions to get through the BSAR training.  Failure, it is said, is one of the best teachers, and from that perspective I seemed to be learning a lot.  Some days were frustrating, and I was beginning to wonder if perhaps I was in over my head.  However, curiosity and a little bit of competitiveness compelled me to go on.

Before we knew it, it was the final weekend and the written exam was upon us, just a mere formality to the real event that Saturday evening, the search scenario.  Four search teams were formed; I was a member of Team 2.  The search exercise started out with a lot of "hurry up and wait", just like we were told it would.  We filled the time with a briefing on command post etiquette and some review by our team lead and mentors and making a sketch of a footprint.  Before long, though we got the official briefing from Command and I hurriedly scribbled down notes as fast as I could.  Then, we waited again for deployment, and, finally, the transport vehicle arrived that was to take us to our search task location.  We hurriedly piled our packs and our bodies in.  We were on our way to whatever awaited us.

We quickly arrived and deployed at our task location.  We took some bearings, found our coordinates, and notified Command we were starting our search.  We started on a tight grid pattern but before long we ran into the technical glitch that was to continually hound us that evening, as our radio equipment went on the fritz.  Fortunately, one of our mentors had a personal radio tuned into the portable repeater, but our team's progress was significantly slowed.  We never did find any sign.

Then the news came over the radio.  Team 4 had found the subject.  Team 1 was assigned to get the litter and Teams 2 and 3 were instructed to rendezvous to assist with medical care and carryout.  Our subject was lying supine in a sandy wash, with vital signs deteriorating rapidly.  As one of the EMTs on scene, it became my responsibility to help provide care for our patient, and I got my first experience applying a leg splint in a wilderness setting.  We anxiously counted the seconds waiting for the litter to arrive.  We hoped our patient could hang on.  Then Team 1 arrived and it was time to load the patient and go.  We still had to do the carryout which according to our plotted location meant we would have to carry 110 kilos of patient and litter across nearly 1000 meters of thorny desert scrub, sand, rock, and uneven terrain.  But with lots of teamwork we brought our subject out in what seemed like a short amount of time, and we're told he survived.

Then just as quickly as it started, the exercise was over.  We got a short debriefing at the command post, and then it was time to set up our shelters and get some sleep.  Fortunately, failure had been a good teacher earlier that day and my shelter came together very well when it really mattered.  I lay awake for some time, savoring the view of the moonlit landscape outside and the cool breeze that occasionally worked its way inside, and replaying the events of the night in my head.  Did I do everything as well as I hoped?  Not quite.  Did I learn a great deal?  Yes.  Do I have a renewed passion to take the next steps with my SAR career?  Absolutely. 

This is just the beginning for the 24 of us; we've all returned to our units and now will work to learn as much as we can from them.  It will be good to meet up with each of my classmates in future trainings and at missions.  I look forward to hearing how they are all doing as they progress in their own careers and in their own specialties.  We now have something in common, as each of us has joined the SAR family, and on that note I must say that any family would be hard pressed to surpass the welcome to new members that has been extended to us.  The entire instructional staff, the team leaders, and mentors went way above and beyond to give us students the best possible learning experience.  The knowledge and experience passed down to us was impressive.  The passion and dedication shared with us was heartwarming.  All of it is very much appreciated.