For a troop meeting in late November we had an offsite meeting where we visited the Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue team. We saw all sorts of equipment that they have, some demos, and we got to try our skills as well. Oh, and we saw some absolutely amazing knot skills and uses!!
A few things we learned
- While they are sponsored by the Sheriff’s Dept, they do have to fundraise and they are an all volunteer team, and get called at all hours of the day and night.
- They get over 100 calls per year (fortunately not all of them develop into full scale rescues)
- On top of the in the field rescues, they spend two days a month at the SAR headquarters doing training and practicing their skills.
- One of the members (Kevin Hess) is a former scout from Troop 26 !!
We saw in the paper that the day after we visited, they were called in to rescue a paraglider who crashed into deep brush in the Gibraltar Road area!
Thanks to the SAR folks (Don, Bob, Kevin, and the others) for volunteering the time to give the tour! Who knows which of our current scouts may end up on their team in the future?
