[rich]

Sorry this is so long-winded, but hopefully it will provoke some good discussion:

Our SAR team had enough grant money this year to host a team-only level I course this past weekend. There was enough room left in the course so that other team members who had previously taken level I courses could also attend (including myself). I took my level I about eight years ago and spent the intervening time traveling and skiing in avalanche terrain in NM and SW CO, reading books and checking in on this forum so I felt like I had some experience and worked to keep my skills current. During the course of the first field day, we were doing a scenario and I was doing a beacon search. I found the beacon (one of two) and I started to take the beacon out of its case to turn it off. Then I heard the instructor say to me "Don't turn off that beacon." I thought it was strange, but dropped the beacon as ordered and went off to find the other one (another team member had found the second one). Once the scenario was over the instructor reiterated (rather forcefully) that we were not to turn off found beacons. Since I had always been taught to turn them off once found to facilitate finding additional beacons, I was a little stunned and just stared at him. When I started to question him he said (even more forcefully) "Ask any avalanche professional. You just don't turn off beacons." He reasoned that your priority was to clear the airway of a burried victim, then go search for other victims and not waste your time with turning off a found beacon. This was presented as an irrefutable rule.

At the debriefing, the instructor asked if I still disagreed with him and I told him that I understood his reasoning of not wasting time when there was airway management or other victims that needed to be found but I asked that if it was convenient to turn off a victim's beacon, should you do so since it will greatly aid in the finding of other beacons. He conceded that yes, you should turn off the beacon if it's convenient but that digital beacons made it so easy to find multiple beacons that it wasn't important.

After thinking about it for a while there were two things that were issues for me. First, I had a problem with how the instructor had addressed this issue. Instead of it being a discussion point it was more of a dogmatic rule. The other issue is that I think rescuers should train as if it were a real situation. If students are never taught that turning off the beacon of a found victim is an option, they'll never do it in a rescue situation where it could make a difference. It would seem to me that the protocol should be to find the victim, manage the airway, turn off the beacon if it can be done quickly, then move on to the next beacon. This idea was reinforced when I remembered that earlier in the day we had done beacon searches with partners. One time I hid a second beacon that my partner didn't know I had with me. She found the first beacon, turned it off then to her surprise heard her beacon pick up the second one. Sometimes you just don't know how many beacons you're searching for so the protocol of turning off found beacons makes sense to me. Though I guess if you always assume that there are multiple beacons out there but then you may be wasting resources that are searching for beacons/victims that aren't there when these people could be giving aid to those that have already been found.

Discussion?

Another note: Most everything in this course was review for me and I found it lacking in certain areas (mostly with regard to the science behind some of the concepts). I can't help feeling that Ttips plays a role in keeping a lot of this stuff fresh in my mind. Once again it has proven to be a great resource and a great community.

[Gary Brill]

In the instance of multiple burials you should turn off the transceiver of a recovered burial victim unless life-saving CPR is an issue or there is a risk of another avalanche and the victim cannot be moved to a safe location.

In practices, though, turning off the beacon substantially raises the probability of a beacon being buried in the off position. Additionally, multiple beacon recoveries are more difficult if found beacons are not turned off. So the practice may be more testing. I'll often have "rescuers" in a practice stay with the located "victim", not turn the beacon off, and drop out of the search, simulating the need to dig out the "victim".

[ball of foot]

[wow]

ball of foot's answer makes sense to me.

Part of this may go back to the multiple burial in the La Sals a few years back. Several people died including th avalanche forecaster of the area at the time.

The two survivors found all the burials and turned off the beacons leaving the area. It was the start of a storm and when the body recovery was initiated, heli bombing produced large avalanches reburying the victims. Special probes using 12-14 foot lengths of electrical conduit were used and the recovery lasted several days.
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[Missing Link]

Maybe the instructor saw the chance to turn that training into a real life rescue sitiuation where turning the beacon off would be a time wasting effort by having to dig down deep enough to unbury the persons waist line, take off /unzip various clothing layers and then figure out how to turn it off while that time would be best spent looking for other buried victims after clearing the head/airway.

I can say that in real life multiple burials, the ability to turn off found victims beacons in a timely fashion is not always possible and perhaps the instructors reason for asking to proceed in such a manor?


ML

[velocity]

I agree with Rich in terms of the specific proceedure of turning off found beacons in multiple burials and more importantly with having a problem with the dogmatic approach. Speed is really the critical factor.

This a story related to multiple burials, for what it's worth. We had a four victim practice scenario in my level 2 class last Wednesday and it was very enlightening. With a Barryvox I was able to locate signals very quickly and did not have a problem with the multiples. The range is not that great, but the information you get allows you to move in so quickly that I'm not worried as much about the range. You can use other clues about the accident to help get you close to the likely burial locations. With a beacon like the barryvox or tracker the survival issue is going to be digging speed and depth of burial.

What was interesting was that one of the victim beacons was turned off mistakenly. We did not know this of course, so after the relatively rapid location of the first three, I was running around searching and asking the others "Do you have a signal? Did you find the fourth? Are there two burials side by side?"There was confusion and some folks were treating the simulation less seriously than others, so I could not get the right information. I started a very wide search for the fourth and evetually gave up because I found no signal. If number four was to survive we would had to have begun a probe line. We had enough people to make it a reasonable option, but bad communication doomed skier 4. I think that there are lessons here that go beyond technical practice and beacon technology.

[rich]

Thanks all for the comments.

[staggerlee917]

which SAR group do you belong to?

I've been considering going to the Atalaya meetings (every other wednesday at whole foods?)

[Todd G]

My quick take on this is in line with Gary's -- don't turn it off if there's a risk of reburial.

[TOLOCOMan]

Okay, I just found my one buddy with my probe. He's only buried a metre. I'll just reach down and turn off his beacon. Yeah right. The reasoning behind your instructors instructions were that it is very unusual that you will be able to easily turn off a buried victims beacon. It takes a while to dig someone out. By the time you dug out one victim to turn off their beacons, any other burials wouldn't have much chance. The way I was taught was this. If you are part of a group that is not buried, once you have found a victim, somebody starts digging them out while you keep searching for the other burials. If you are the only person not buried, dig out the first victim enough that their airway is open and then continue searching for the other victims. In either case, you would still be searching for other burials while the initial beacon is still sending. Sure, it's faster searching for the second beacon if the first one is turned off, but by that time all you're speeding up is the body recovery. That's why it is good to practice searching for a second beacon while the first is still transmitting.

[frank]

[ball of foot]

also, many multiple burials result in several partial burials or shallow burials in addition to the deep ones. (so i've read, thankfully I have no first hand experience with this!). so it can also be reasonable to simply hand the partial victim a shovel, let them dig themselves out and ask them to switch their beacon to receive when they can.

like most decisions in the outdoors, there is no dogmatic, always-correct answer. i think it's good to be aware that if it is reasonable to do so, turning off beacons will help the search. obviously, there are many cases where this is impractical, so it's probably good to practice that scenario too. however, for an instructor to simply categorically state "you never turn off a beacon" is simply false. a better instructor would have qualified his statement, even if just to say "we can discuss this more later, but for the moment, in the interest of limited time, please do it my way" or "for the purposes of this exercise, we're going to assume that it is impractical to turn the beacon off so that you can practice the more difficult case."
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thanks for listening.

ball
of
foot

[Gary Brill]

ball of foot:

[TeleAl]

I'd like to note that I turn my BCA Tracker beacon on to AR.
(hold SP button down when turning on, and wait until it is in transmit mode. You should see AR appear after battery power % is displayed.)

In this case, if I am searching and I am buried, after 5 minutes, my beacon reverts back to transmit mode (as opposed to staying in search mode) so people can find me. A small hassle during a search maybe, but consider the benefits.

Now, if everyone's beacon is in that mode, I believe it would be safe to turn a beacon to search (not off), even if burial could follow. I would never turn one off(!), not even at lunch in fact (too easy to forget to turn back on).

I am not an av instructor. If someone sees danger in what I am doing, please inform me.

[rich]