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‘Eye in the sky’

New tools, technology, teamwork help train for avalanche rescue

When it comes to avalanches, Colorado has the nation’s highest fatality rate, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Buried victims have a 92 percent survival rate if found within 15 minutes.

After that, the clock is ticking.

Fast.

To beat this clock, the 100 percent volunteer-based La Plata County Search & Rescue team has partnered with Flight For Life – a medical air-transportation company in Denver with a station in Durango – to offer the state’s second aircraft-equipped beacon receiver, a significant advancement for avalanche-rescue scenarios.

Beacons are small, handheld personal transceivers that most people wear when they go into the backcountry during winter. They can be used to transmit a signal or pick one up if they are caught in an avalanche.

On Saturday, nine volunteers gathered on La Plata County’s Director of Emergency Preparedness Butch Knowlton’s ranch in the Animas Valley, and Flight For Life pilot Matt Palazzolo, McGrath and base manager Yonnia Waggoner ran exercises locating a beacon hidden in tall golden grasses.

“It’s a triple-antenna receiver,” Flight For Life nurse Travis McGrath said about the 6-pound device. “It only receives a signal. Our goal is to get within 20 meters.”

The receiver, which hung about 15 feet from a helicopter flying over the search area, is effective up to 100 meters and can cover a 100-yard debris pile in about 10 minutes. The crew performed a grid pattern over the search area, much like a ground search, but in a fraction of the time. They listened for signal strength, then directed ground crews to the location of the beacon.

Knowlton said this application is a game-changer.

“I get a 911 call from the center that someone has been buried in an avalanche, and it’s critical that we get people there as fast as possible,” he said. “With this device on the aircraft, we’re able to dispatch the Flight For Life helicopter up to the accident location, and they can go to work instantly. If we didn’t have that, we’d have to airlift people to the scene and try to figure out what happened and where it happened and where the victim may have come to rest. Then, we’d start the probing process.”

He added that a bird’s eye view can provide critical information that otherwise would be unknown.

“It’s our eye in the sky,” Knowlton said. “A lot of times, it’s too dangerous to put searchers in an avalanche path. This is really going to help us.”

There are only two in the state; the other device is in Summit County.

During the two beacon-location drills, the flight crew came well within its 20-meter objective window – 60 feet – in a matter of minutes, once dropping a locator flag at 21 feet and the next at 32 feet. Once a flag is dropped, in an actual rescue, ground crews move in, pinpoint and begin excavating the victim.

“If the airway is open, and there is no trauma – even though the heart rate might be really slow – chances are that even after 30 minutes, the subject is still alive,” said Tom Brueckner, search and rescue vice president and training coordinator. “And in this case, with a medical helicopter, you’ve got a medical crew right there.”

But it works only if you have a transceiver.

“Everyone should have a transceiver in the backcountry,” Brueckner said.

bmathis@durangoherald.com



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