Emergency Response & Search & Rescue by Gary Foo
This new book seems to have aroused a lot of interest, certainly here in the UK, but also abroad too. It seemed appropriate then to write a quick review of the book.
The book covers a vast amount of ground in its 300 plus pages. It starts with a round-up of the different SAR disciplines, explaining briefly a bit about them and how they differ from each other then adds some detail on SAR in the UK.
I especially enjoyed a section on possessiveness and parochialism in SAR and totally agree when Gary writes;
Don’t get me wrong. Those teams who may be well intended and benevolent but dangerous in their presence are also a problem. If their attitude or fitness or competence lets down the mission objective – and I have seen that too – then you also need to be careful
I would probably go further and say that we need to do everything we can to weed out individuals and organisations who want to “play” at SAR without the appropriate levels of competence or with the wrong attitude.
Gary’s book then looks at the International SAR scene and disaster and major incident management. This is drawn from both national and international sources and contains a wide variety of information.
Preparation for search is covered next; with information on callout systems and alerts. It also contains detail on SAR command, team roles and briefing and de-briefing. SOPs, clothing and uniform, equipment and packing, SAR vehicles, communication and logistic in this wide ranging chapter.
Gary then writes about Field Survival & Navigation before moving onto the chapter I was most interested in – Search and the Missing Person/s.
Gary starts by introducing the Foo’s Five Missing and Lost Categories, before moving onto Ground SAR profiling and Lost Person Behaviour. Much of this draws heavily on Koester’s book Lost Person Behavior, with some reference to earlier studies in both the US and UK.
In my view Gary then skirts very quickly over the mathematics of search theory before looking at search methods. Unfortunately I did find some errors in this first edition of the book in this section, some of which were disappointing, but Gary has said that the second edition will address any errors found.
The section on search patterns looks mainly at maritime and aerial search, with a small nod towards ground and land SAR, followed by a very brief section on vision, searching and seeing.
Tracking, Search Dogs and Mounted SAR, Mountain and Motorbikes for search are all covered briefly before Gary writes about Rescue and Advanced Skills in the next chapter including heights, ropes and knots, water and flood work and collapsed building SAR work.
Finally Gary covers SAR medicine including Foo’s Triage System alongside other more traditional medical issues and detail and keeping fit between SAR operations.
Overall, the book covers a lot; perhaps too much. I would certainly liked to have read more on each of the different aspects of SAR and in more detail but maybe this introductory book was designed to cover everything briefly – with more detail in the later books.
However, when any book refers to me as an “authority on search in the UK” I can’t slate it too badly, can I?
November 13, 2009
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Robert Bradley · 
2 Comments
Tags: Briefing, Callout, De-briefing, Emergency Response, Emergency Response & Search & Rescue, Gary Foo, International SAR, Lost Person Behavior, Lost Person Behaviour, Mountain Bikes, Mounted SAR, Navigation, SAR, SAR Command, SAR Medicine, SAR Operations, SAR Vehicles, Search Dogs, Search Patterns, Search Theory, Team Roles · Posted in: Search Books, Search Thoughts
2 Responses
“I would probably go further and say that we need to do everything we can to weed out individuals and organisations who want to “play” at SAR without the appropriate levels of competence or with the wrong attitude.”
Rob, I would totally agree. Lowland SAR does not have a huge amount of credability with every police force, and people/teams without the necessary, up-to-date training will do nothing to further the cause of Lowland SAR in the UK.
ALSAR teams need to ensure that we work at the very highest standards we can achieve, through sharing ideas between teams, multi-team training, cooperation and also through research driven techniques.
Due to the voluntary nature of lowland SAR, we are always going to have to fight for credability, but if we are professional, and train effectively, and further knowledge into SAR, we will achieve the credability we need to accepted country wide, similar to the way MR are accepted and trusted.
If there are any individuals or even teams who comprimise these aims, they need to be seriously dealt with, before they bring the whole discipline of lowland SAR into disrepute. We need to be so careful about maintaining a professional reputation, and whereas it could take years to build up a reputation similar to that of MR, whereas only one piece of bad press could set us back significantly, and make the whole of ALSAR lose credability.
Potentially, improving the knowledge about ALSAR would help – setting ALSAR teams apart from other groups of people, and bringing all ALSAR team training in line with one course being rolled out to all team would help. If ALSAR teams all trained to the same course, another team setting up outside of ALSAR would lack the same level of knowledge and would appear different to anyone coming into contact. ALSAR needs to become more cohesive as a group of teams, and then other groups not conforming to ALSAR’s ACOP will set themselves apart, and will not have the credability, and so any issues with their professionalism or knowledge should affect ALSAR teams less.
As for the book, I’d like to have a brief look through it at some point if I can borrow a copy?
I suspect this is just Gary Foo’s way of slating teams other than his own. His own credibility is dubious to say the least.
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