Larimer County Search and Rescue
Mission Reports 2010
January 9, 2010(Saturday) - Horsetooth Mountain Park - Assist with Subject Having Heart Attack
February 18, 2010 (Thursday) - Horsetooth Mountain Park - Lost Hiker
March 6, 2010 (Saturday) - Boulder County - Assist with Grid Search at Plane Crash Site<
March 6, 2010 (Saturday) - Boulder County - Assist with Grid Search at Plane Crash Site
2025 3/4/2120 LCSAR team was paged: "RMRG (Boulder) is requesting grid searchers for Saturday morning. See email and reply to it if available. Dave H.".
This mission was a coordinated effort by multiple organizations to clear a Boulder County open space of debris from the plane collision that occurred on February 6, 2010.
Additional details reported by 9NEWS, see link: http://www.9news.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=132388
Crash sites were separated from each other by a ridge line. The debris field was initially suspected to be scattered over several miles. NTSB authorities were needing further information on how and why the collision occurred. The recovery of missing aircraft electronics and controls would be critical information to the on-going investigation by NTSB. The most important aircraft item to be located was a 12x12 "TV screen" from the Cirrus SR20 plane. This is considered the "black box" for that type of aircraft. It was also important that any remaining bio-hazard in the search area be recovered from the open space. The Boulder County open space was closed to the public since the accident. The recovery of the human remains and aircraft debris would allow the Boulder County open space to be re-opened to the public.
Most of the human remains and aircraft debris were recovered from the search area. Although the "TV screen" was not one of those items, some important electronics were located. One item was the altimeter from one of the aircraft. This would potentially provide the altitude at which the collision occurred. Many other fiberglass pieces were recovered. Due to paint transfer on some of these items, the NTSB may be able to better determine the specifics of the accident. Multiple bio-hazard articles were recovered from the search area. Any suspected bio-hazard was identified and confirmed by the Boulder County Coroner.
All north facing slopes still contained approximately 8-12 inches of snow. After the snow has melted, it is possible that further searching of this area may result in additional debris recovered.
Total LCSAR volunteer hours: 19 hours
LCSAR Volunteer miles driven: 90 miles
Total LCSAR personnel responding: 3 (2 in field)
Emergency Services personnel: 1
Other agencies involved (~75 total personnel): NTSB, RMRG, LEU, Boulder County Coroner Office, Boulder count Sheriff Office, Fire Management (Sheriff's office of Boulder County), City of Boulder Open Space Mountain Park Rangers, Front Range Rescue Dogs, Arapaho Rescue Patrol, and the Boulder County Jail.
January 9, 2010 (Saturday) - Horsetooth Mountain Park - Assist with Subject Having Heart Attack
LCSAR was paged to respond Code 3 to assist with a subject who was having a heart attack somewhere on the trail to Horsetooth Mountain. As members were arriving on scene, medical personnnel already on-scene, who had been performing CPR, pronouced the subject deceased. A medi-vac helicopter had also just landed. LCSAR Personnel, as well as other agencies who responded, packaged the body and carried it to the helicopter to be flown to the trailhead parking area where the coroner was waiting. Great multi-agency cooperation incliding Larimer County Parks, Poudre Fire Authority, Poudre Valley Ambulance, and Larimer County Sheriff's Emergency Services. -Fink
Mission Report - Horsetooth Mountain Park/Cardiac Arrest
1240 Hours: The SAR team was paged to respond to Horsetooth Mountain Park for a 52 yoa male who was having an apparent heart attack. The subject was on the Horsetooth Trail, approximately 1/2 the distance from the trailhead to Horsetooth Rock. The first SAR units and emergency services arrived at the trailhead at approximately 1255 hours. PFA Brush 9 and Parks units were already at the trailhead and were starting up the service road with some gear. It was confirmed with Brush 9 they had a litter onboard. As of this time, no SAR member was responding with the SAR truck, and therefore it decided to have all SAR units respond direct and not divert anyone to pick up the SAR truck.
ES (S17) was the SAR Group Supervisor and a PFA personnel was Incident Command. Due to low initial SAR member response, the SAR manager on scene went into the field with other members that initially responded.
Park Rangers were the first personnel to arrive on scene with the subject. The subject had been hiking with his daughter, and was visiting from Indiana. Reports are the subject began to experience chest pain, the daughter called 911, and the subject collapsed. The daughter was performing CPR on the subject when Parks Rangers arrived. Parks Rangers and EMS personnel continued CPR until they were advised to discontinue ALS. The subject was then carried out approximately 1/2 mile, by Parks, EMS, PFA and SAR members, to a waiting med evac helicopter. The helicopter flew the subject to the trailhead where the helicopter was met by the coroner who pronounced the subject dead.
Additional information is reported by the Coloradoan newspaper, at the following link: Heart Attack Horsetooth - Coloradoan
Multiple pages were sent to the SAR team for additional resources, due to initial low response. By the time the team was stood down, 13 SAR members had responded to the park.
As a side note, while the SAR team was finishing up the recovery, information was relayed to the team through sheriff dispatch, that there had been an avalanche on Cameron Pass. However, it was reported that Diamond Peaks Ski Patrol was on scene or near the slide, and were going to assess whether anyone was caught in the slide before the SAR team would be asked to respond, and therefore LCSAR remained on standby.
1520 hours: SAR units cleared the scene at Horsetooth Mountain Park.
Total SAR volunteer hours: 36.40 hours
Volunteer miles driven: 200 miles
Total SAR personnel responding: 14 (13 in field plus ITC)
Emergency Services personnel: 2
Other agencies involved:
County Park Rangers & personnel: 5+
PFA: 6+
PVH ambulance service: 3+
Med Evac helicopter: 2+
Allen W., SAR Manager
February 18, 2010 (Thursday) - Horsetooth Mountain Park - Lost Hiker
17:18 the SAR manager group received a page for the on call sar manager to call O-3 reference a search for a lost individual in Horsetooth Reservoir/Horsetooth Mountain Park area. Larimer 1 (L1) called and found out that the Parks units had been working on the mission for a couple hours and wanted to incorporate the SAR team since it was going to be dark soon. We did not have the name, age or sex of the individual yet but O-3 thought it would be best to get the team rolling as soon as possible to take advantage of daylight that was left. We would collect more information at staging. L-1 paged out for the In Town Coordinator to contact him to get resources started. By the time the page was ready to go out to the team, we heard radio traffic that the Rangers had located the subject and we could stand down. A stand down page was sent at 17:30.
Reported By Dave Hake L-1
February 21, 2010 (Sunday) - Somewhere in Larimer County - Lost Keys
12:10 contacted by one of our team members (John Lee) who reported a missing set of keys. The keys were last seen entering his pocket as he walked towards a field of snow. They were discovered missing when he approached his vehicle. He conducted a hasty search by following his tracks. Thank goodness he paid attention during Tracking training or I don't think he would have been able to see his tracks in the 8 inches of new snow that we just received. With multiple attempts he was unable to locate them. He started gathering resources of his own from local friends and they begun a grid search of the area. He finally decided to contact Dave Hake (a SAR Manager) to get more resources. He was requesting a metal detector and I suggested I put a page out to the team with his request. I also requested a Search Dog team that had experience in conducting "Evidence Searches" for articles in an area. Two Dog teams contacted John. Robyn Bond was responding with her dog Taiya Code 1 (without Lights and Siren... although it was important to find those keys I didn't feel it needed to be an Emergency response) and Jayne Zmijewski and Lakota were on stand-by if the weather cleared up. Jayne told the RP that he should minimize the number of people walking around the PLS to give the Dogs a better chance of finding the keys. When John called in his grid searchers one of them stepped on his keys while returning to base. All resources were stood down.
Mission duration: 2 hours
Larimer County SAR members: 4
Larimer County SAR hours: 3
Larimer County SAR miles: 10
LCSAR ITC: John Lee (also Reporting Party)
LCSAR SAR Manager (L1): Dave Hake
PS: This search was not sanctioned or approved by Larimer County Sheriff Department. Zero tax dollars were spent on this search. No, we don't normally do call outs for lost keys... Since John is one of our members we like helping our fellow members and it's good practice for the Dog teams.... but you can bet we'll never let him live it down ;-)
