King County Explorer Search and Rescue was kind enough to let me film one of their trainings and demoed a lower and raise with me in the litter. SAR systems are fully redundant and have a large safety ratio they stay within. It's interesting to observe how they maintain that the entire time because as a highliner (the slackline kind), I'm redundantly safe with a 3:1 safety ratio...most of the time; but occasionally I'm standing near a cliff edge not tied in. SAR doesn't want more people injured when they help an injured person. I also learned how much people give of themselves as it is all volunteer based and you can find out how you can volunteer or donate to KCESAR http://kcesar.org/ and https://www.facebook.com/kingcountyesar. Also check out your local unit and get involved.
Behind the Scenes
Joseph Cruikshank connected me with Valon so we could plan to film one of their training outings. We didn't just want to talk about search and rescue but demo it. This video was intended to be an official introduction into a new activity we will be intentionally doing test videos for. This is actually the 2nd video as I dumped the previous one after I filmed and edited it because it wasn't up to the quality of my episodes. I end up tossing about 1 out of every 20-30 videos because we try to make them great, but sometimes they just don't work out. Couldn't rescue that first try!
After Posting Thoughts
We had a lot of positive feedback the the trolls kept it to a minimum which really helps other SAR units want to share things they may not have posted publicly before. Most SAR systems are kept close to the vest because there are a lot of opinions about any system chosen by a unit and it's hard to get the job done and manage those opinions. Subscribe to see more SAR episodes as we are currently planning more.
Check out this episode with a fire fighter.
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