In January of 2012 Search One conducted the first of two mock search drills for the Texas State Guard. This particular event simulated a disaster response resulting from a tornado strike in a heavily populated residential area located in Arlington. The purpose of the exercise was to conduct both classroom and real time field operations allowing the Guard units to practice skills needed should they be called in to assist in such an event. Paul Lake team founder conducted the classroom portion and briefed the command staff on what the mock would include. The Guard was then dispatched to the staging area and the troops were briefed on their missions.
There were four live victims and several human remains articles to be located by a combination of Search One K9 teams and Guard elements. Each of the live victims (and the HR hides) were moulaged to make them as realistic as possible. The deployment and strategies employed were designed to be a high pressure and real as possible to allow the Guard participants to learn both the strategy and the decision making needed to operate in this type of environment.
Two Air Scent (live find) K9 teams and one Trailing (live find) K9 team were deployed each quickly finding seriously injured victims. The Guard teams were required to communicate back to their Patient loading and transport cross country their victims. Unbeknown to these field teams the Arlington Fire Department who was assisting in the staging of this event had arranged for a medical helicopter to coordinate their arrival with the extrication process. So the field teams were able to transport their victims to a waiting helo, load them on board and then stand by for a safety class on helicopter operations.
After the live find victims had all been located HRD K9 teams were deployed to locate the balance of human remains in the area. We are happy to say that all live victims fully recovered and even though some local kids thought the hand they found was a cool toy all the HRD hides were recovered as well. The day was a tremendous success and set the stage for a second event held in September. This one simulated a downed aircraft with all the recovery efforts included in that type of scenario and it was a significant success as well.
