|
|
| Inside This Issue: |
|
||||||||||||
June 2001 |
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
July 2001 |
||||||||||||
|
The Unit was contacted by the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management at 4:00 p.m. on Monday the 30th of April. They requested as many Mountain Rescue Volunteers as possible for a search in Snohomish County.
Two 33-year old hikers, Mike Barbadelata and Alex Pawoff, both from Seattle, had left on Saturday morning for a hike to the summit of Mt. Dickerman, They had planned to return on Sunday evening. Before they could complete their hike the weather turned bad and stranded them about 700 feet from the summit at about the 5,000 foot level. They were in good condition and well equipped. The had also carried both a cell phone and radio with them and were able to talk to search base. Mt. Dickerman is a fairly easy hike but has some trails off switch backs that lead to dead ends at the edge of 1000 foot cliffs. It is no place to be stumbling around in a whiteout. They were told to stay put. Members of Snohomish Search and Rescue did a search Sunday night but the search was suspended due to avalanche hazard.
Four members responded to the call out: Mike Mixon, Ed Hrivnak, Phil Fortier, and Darin Brenner. Mike and Ed met at the Cache and Phil and Darin went directly to the search base. When they arrived at 6:00 a.m. at the search base they were told to gear up and start up the trail to the summit as soon as possible.
A storm Sunday night had dropped two to three feet of new snow which made the going fairly tough. Around 10:00 a..m. a rescue helicopter from Snohomish County spotted the subjects through a break in the clouds. They were told to descend to a flat clearing and stomp out a landing zone for the helicopter. The helicopter was a small two seat aircraft so the pilot could only take out one at a time. After lifting the first subject to search base the weather closed back in. The ground teams were told to continue; however, the weather opened up again just long enough to extract the second subject. All of the ground teams were then told to return to base.
The Unit was contacted by the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management at 4:00 a.m. on Wednesday the 23rd of May. They were requesting as many Mountain Rescue volunteers as possible to Search for Ferro, a Pierce County Sheriff's German Shepard that had disappeared the night before while tracking three suspected car thieves just north of Greenwater.
A call out was made at the time; however, no Unit members could respond at that time. Another call out was made later in the day for Wednesday evening. Three members responded: Chris Berryman, Mike Mixon, and Alan Givotovsky. They along with searchers from other Units in the Pierce County Search and Rescue Council and search teams from King County spent the night searching. Though numerous potential sightings and reports of barking and howling were made none of them resulted in the recovery of the dog. Chris, Mike and Alan returned to Tacoma Thursday morning.
A third call out was made Thursday night for Friday morning. Three members responded. Greg Lane, Ken Capron and David McElmurray. However, problems with the search truck prevented Ken and Greg from responding the next morning. Two other members, Fran Martoglio and Chris Berryman, were able to respond later in the morning. The search was called off Friday evening without the recovery of the Sheriff's K-9.
Altitude is defined on the following scale High (8,000 - 12,000 feet [2,438 - 3,658 meters]), Very High (12,000 - 18,000 feet [3,658 - 5,487 meters]), and Extremely High (18,000+ feet [5,500+ meters]). There are no specific factors such as age, sex, or physical condition that correlate with susceptibility to altitude sickness. Some people get it and some people don't, and some people are more susceptible than others. Most people can go up to 8,000 feet (2,438 meters) with minimal effect. If you haven't been to high altitude before, it's important to be cautious. If you have been at an altitude before with no problem, you can probably return to that altitude without problems as long as you are properly acclimatized.
What Causes Altitude Illnesses:
The concentration of oxygen at sea level is about 21% and the barometric pressure averages 760 mm Hg. As altitude increases, the concentration remains the same but the number of oxygen molecules per breath is reduced. At 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) the barometric pressure is only 483 mm Hg, so there are roughly 40% fewer oxygen molecules per breath. In order to properly oxygenate the body, your breathing rate (even while at rest) has to increase. This extra ventilation increases the oxygen content in the blood, but not to sea level concentrations. Since the amount of oxygen required for activity is the same, the body must adjust to having less oxygen. In addition, for reasons not entirely understood, high altitude and lower air pressure causes fluid to leak from the capillaries which can cause fluid build-up in both the lungs and the brain. Continuing to higher altitudes without proper acclimatization can lead to potentially serious, even life-threatening illnesses.
The response to the last mission brought up some misunderstanding in the Unit call out procedure. About a year ago it was decided by the Unit governing board that the Unit would pay for pagers for each active member out of Unit funds. This was done in the hope of making call outs easier. It seems the procedures have either been forgotten or misunderstood. One of the responsibilities of being a member of Tacoma Mountain Rescue is to carry this pager with you at all times, keep it turned on, and not leave it sitting somewhere turned off. When a call out is made, you are to call the Operations Leader whose number is on the mission hotline. You then tell him or her if you are available or not. We are all volunteers; the OL is not going to twist your arm to go, but we do need an accounting of Unit availability. If you do not respond to the pager then about thirty minutes after it goes off you may be called by a Unit OL no matter the time of day or night asking for your availability. So wear your pager and respond to the mission pages.
Come prepared to place your order at the kit party (better option) or the regular membership meeting!
More information is in the printed Rucksack, or see Tim Greminger for details.
These minutes as published are unofficial and subject to approval at the next regularly scheduled board meeting.
Convened 19:32.
BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Fran Martoglio, Ken Capron, Victor Caro, John Kirkman, Gus Bush, Bill Weber, Rick Wire.
OTHER MEMBERS PRESENT: Jeff Sharp, Rod Scott, Jim Andrues, Tim Greminger, Michael Mixon, Greg Lang, Alan Givotovsky.
TREASURER'S REPORT: Victor Caro
KIT REPORT: Tracy Berryman
OPERATIONS REPORT: Gus Bush
TRAINING REPORT: Russ Brinton
EQUIPMENT REPORT: Ken Capron
COMMUNICATIONS: Stan Kartes
SAFETY & EDUCATION: Rick Wire
MEMBERSHIP REPORT: Chris Berryman
FINANCE REPORT: Bill Weber
SAR Council: Wendy Stefaniak
MAST: Bill Weber
OLD BUSINESS:
NEW BUSINESS:
Meeting Adjourned at 21:33
Respectfully yours,
The following members attended the Kit party May 2:
They made 200 kits.
The Component Party was attended by:
The next Component Party will be June 20, 7pm at the cache. The Kit parties are held from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M., the first Wednesday at the Cache.
If you need directions, call 531-2120. We need your help.
The unit is thinking of putting together a presentation of pictures to show the unit in action. If you have any pictures that were taken on unit missions, and think they would look great in this presentation. Contact Gus at the email address on the front of the rucksack or at a unit meeting.
Tacoma Mountain Rescue |
 |