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wanderwild
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wanderwild
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PostSat Sep 15, 2018 10:22 pm 
braincloud wrote:
"I saw a bunch of people do this on social media so it's just a hike" mentality.
I was literally just on instagram and saw someone comment on a picture of ingalls lake "looks sick! Where do you purchase tickets for this hike?"

"Whatever your mountain, climb on."
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Yana
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PostSat Sep 15, 2018 10:32 pm 
UWW wrote:
Stefan-K wrote:
For example, rather than try the risky rescue that they did, why not just lower someone
My guess is if you're going to go to the trouble of lowering someone you might as well extract the victim- even if you have to long line them out.
There is a lot more risk with extracting someone, especially an injured patient (as opposed to, say a crewman). Also, trying to read between the lines (admittedly that's not a lot of information), it sounds like this extraction was done via hoist, which makes it riskier for a multitude of reasons. And if you were going to lower someone to spend the night with the subject, you'd want to also lower equipment for the both of them to safely spend the night (especially given the forecast for high winds, the altitude, and the time of year), now it's getting more complicated. However, it's hard to really know what happened and what decisions were made based on the given information. I'm guessing the initial decision stating that it was to risky to send rescuers until morning was for the ground rescue - as in, it's too risky to have them approach given the weather forecast and impending darkness. Additionally, the sheriff's office requested the helicopter, but the aircrew makes their own decisions on what to do (especially in this case as it was a military aircraft, not one belonging to that particular sheriff's office and thus not in their chain of command).

PLAY SAFE! SKI ONLY IN CLOCKWISE DIRECTION! LET'S ALL HAVE FUN TOGETHER!
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Stefan-K
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PostSun Sep 16, 2018 8:48 am 
Yana wrote:
And if you were going to lower someone to spend the night with the subject, you'd want to also lower equipment for the both of them to safely spend the night
Given the quality of lightweight equipment these days the list of items that I wrote in my first post shouldn't weigh more, or much more, than 20 lbs, (if that). Easily stowable on every SAR helicopter for the eventuality that an extraction is not possible, and easily carried in one lowering. And because this is the internet I'll add that I've been up Adams--and really all the local volcanoes--in all seasons multiple times. Seems to me leaving someone (+ basic survival kit) with a stranded person certainly beats the option of leaving them there overnight by themselves with questionable chances of survival if a heli extraction proves to be impossible or too risky. That said kudos to the heli pilots for their skills in pulling this one off.

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Stefan-K
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PostSun Sep 16, 2018 8:54 am 
UWW: From the report the pilots went to some effort to accomplish the extraction:
Adams Rescue wrote:
...the two pilots decided to remove all rescue personnel from one helicopter and deliberately burn its fuel in an attempt to make it lighter, the release said. From there, one of the rescue personnel was harnessed to a hoist and lowered to Adams’ position. After Adams latched onto his rescuer, the helicopter went into a dive and fell for about 2,000 feet before stabilizing, Briscoe said. Adams was then lifted into the helicopter and safely flown to the ground

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christensent
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PostSun Sep 16, 2018 9:28 am 
Stefan-K wrote:
Seems to me leaving someone (+ basic survival kit) with a stranded person certainly beats the option of leaving them there overnight by themselves with questionable chances of survival if a heli extraction proves to be impossible or too risky.
It'd really depend on the situation I think. You have to consider upcoming weather too, it has not been very favorable for the last week. One of the fundamentals of rescue is to not take significant risks of increasing the number of victims by putting rescuers directly in harms way. If there's a non-trivial chance that nobody will be able to get to these people for days or more due to incoming weather, my understanding is that doing something like leaving a rescuer would be unacceptable as they stand a decent chance of perishing with the original victim. In many physical locations, it would not be possible to put up a structure to make a multi-day severe weather event survivable even to a rescuer and we don't know if it would be possible for one or two rescuers to relocate the victim to a safer location. The upper Mazama glacier is a very unforgiving environment of extensive crevasses, seracs, very steep slopes, and it melts down to areas of glacial ice. You could definitely end up in places where even a skilled rescuer would lack the ice climbing experience to escape the location let alone moving a potentially injured inexperienced climber. If this was July on Mt. Si with 50 degree nights and nothing but sunny days in the forecast, I completely agree with your statement. Beyond that, it's hard to say if it'd be appropriate without all the details.

Learning mountaineering: 10% technical knowledge, 90% learning how to eat
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Stefan-K
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PostSun Sep 16, 2018 11:36 am 
Totally agree. Variables and conditions would have to be well calculated. Another option would be to just leave supplies if risks of another person were deemed too high.

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Schroder
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PostSun Sep 16, 2018 12:05 pm 
Another option is to drop the team in the nearest location where the pilot can safely hover and then go by ground to the subject. I've been in this scenario a few times where the pilot forgets there are people on board capable of walking.

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wolffie
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PostMon Sep 17, 2018 9:55 am 
If you have any curiosity at all about helicopters, read this book: Mason, "Chickenhawk" ... but of course, if you have any curiosity at all about helicopters, you have already done so...

Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
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Schroder
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PostMon Sep 17, 2018 11:03 am 
up.gif Great book. Read it several times.

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Stefan-K
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PostMon Sep 17, 2018 1:01 pm 
Schroder wrote:
I've been in this scenario a few times where the pilot forgets there are people on board capable of walking.
ha! & thanks for the book recommendation - “’Do you ever think about quitting?’ Gary asked. ‘Sometimes.’ ‘Me too. Sometimes. Guess that makes us chickens.’ ‘Maybe. But we do go fly, don’t we? That’s got to make up for feeling chicken.’ ‘Yeah, I guess it does.’ He paused. ‘And when I’m flying the assaults, I start feeling brave, almost comfortable in the middle of it all. Like a hawk, maybe.’ ‘I do, too. When I’m in the middle of it. But times like now, I’d quit at the slightest excuse. So what am I? A chicken or a hawk?’ ‘You’re a chickenhawk.” Gary smiled. ‘Yeah.’ There was silence. Yes, I thought. We’re both scared out of our minds. It felt like we were near the end of our wait on death row.”

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vasiSAR
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PostMon Sep 17, 2018 5:25 pm 
I was on the search and recovery of his brother earlier this year. I am shocked and disappointed this young man was so unprepared and took great unwarranted risk of duplicating the fate of his brother and having his family suffer a second tragic loss. These recovery missions put the lives and well being of many people at risk. It is sad that too often the actions of so many people would seem to reflect they really don't care or they expect the world save them from their bad decisions and act regardless of the potential negative consequences.

vasiSAR
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