HOWLAND, Maine — As far as Richard Bowie is concerned, the Maine Warden Service followed its protocols to the letter in its search in thick woods off Lagrange Road for missing Freeport resident Dean Levasseur early last week.
The effort began, Bowie said, with a line search — searchers walking almost shoulder to shoulder over rough terrain as they looked for the 24-year-old — and proceeded flawlessly. The searchers marked their searched territory with GPS technology and warden service aircraft soon were called in to augment the on-the-ground work, Bowie said.
Levasseur was reported missing on Sunday, April 22, but authorities didn’t bring in the normal contingent of volunteer searchers to help look for him until April 24, Bowie said. Levasseur’s body was discovered the next day.
Bowie — who is director of Down East Emergency Medicine Institute, one of the state’s largest nonprofit search groups and which helped search for Levasseur — is concerned that state police and game warden search protocols are outdated and believes that volunteers should be called in sooner.
Maine Warden Service Lt. Kevin Adam, the state’s search coordinator, strongly disagreed, saying the system has evolved continually and works well.
“In this case, there is no faulting individuals,” Bowie said, referring to the Levasseur search. “There is a system issue with the way it is designed. It needs to be brought into modern times.”
Randolph Michaud, chief of North Star Search and Rescue, a 30-member volunteer group covering Aroostook County, agreed with Bowie. He said Maine legislators should update the state’s search protocols so that search groups immediately are notified of pending or potential searches so they can assemble and otherwise prepare to participate.
“The Maine Warden Service does a wonderful job,” Michaud said, “but the whole system is broken down. A lot of the times, I find out about a search [in Aroostook County] after watching the news.”
But retired Game Warden Deborah Palman, president of the Maine Association for Search and Rescue, an organization that coordinates the efforts of about a dozen volunteer search groups statewide, said Maine’s search and rescue system is “one of the best, if not the best” in New England and along the East Coast.
“There are probably individual situations that could have been done a tiny bit better, but overall, given the lack of funding from the state, it does fairly well,” Palman said. “It is huge that there is one agency [the warden service] in charge of running searches. In other states, where no one agency is in charge or they have no search management training, it is just chaos.”
“I think it works great,” Adam said of Maine’s search system. “We have refined this system repeatedly and we meet with [the Maine Association for Search and Rescue] every other month [to discuss further refinements]. We have pretty much perfected this, and any time there is an issue we look at what it is and how can we make it better.”
Michaud and Bowie would like to see Maine emulate the recent attempt by Vermont legislators to update that state’s search protocols to require that searches begin immediately, a bill proposed in the wake of the death of 19-year-old Levi Duclos of New Haven. Duclos didn’t return home from a hike on the Emily Proctor Trail in Ripton on Jan. 9. He was found dead the next morning of hypothermia.
According to VTDigger.org, a Vermont-based statewide news website dedicated to coverage of Vermont politics, Vermont state police waited about 16 hours to initiate a search operation after family members reported that Duclos was overdue from a day hike.
Greg Dimmock of Bradford said similar timing dogged the search for Levasseur — in which Dimmock participated — and for Dimmock’s son, Old Town resident Jeremy Dimmock, whose body was pulled from the Penobscot River in Old Town last July 24 after he had disappeared on July 18 and drowned. His death was ruled a suicide.
“As far as Levasseur or any of them, [the start of a search] needs to be put out there quicker. My wife and her friend spent two days trying to get somebody to do something. Unfortunately, it would not have changed the outcome,” Dimmock said, “but the Old Town police just figured that he was a young man in his 20s and he just skipped town … and he didn’t. Unfortunately, he didn’t go a half-mile from the house.”
The Vermont legislators’ bill would set interim operational requirements for prompt responses in search and rescue cases, require cooperation with municipal and civilian search and rescue organizations, and establish a study committee to evaluate whether the state’s search and rescue function should remain with state police or be passed to other agencies, according to VTDigger.org. The bill passed the Vermont House about two weeks ago and is pending.
“The system issues there caused that person to die,” Bowie said of the Duclos incident. “One day we might see that happen here. It is just a matter of time before they [Maine search protocols] cause a delay that can cause someone harm.”
A musician, Levasseur died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound early on Sunday, April 22, after he hiked with his fellow bandmates for 2½ miles through the woods off Lagrange Road to get to Chickenfest, a party hosted every spring by University of Maine students at a different, secret location.
Levasseur’s body was found just a few hundred yards west of the stage on the morning of Wednesday, April 25.
After Chickenfest ended, state police learned from Freeport police that Levasseur was missing on the night of April 22. The Maine Warden Service searched the area starting on the morning of Monday, April 23, and continued all day with a search and rescue canine and the dog’s handler, plus three or four wardens and state police, but a torrential downpour prevented the dog from picking up any human scent, Adam and warden Sgt. Ronald Dunham said.
Once that search ended unsuccessfully, state police went public with the search, seeking information on Levasseur’s whereabouts “because we wanted to make sure that he hadn’t left the area with somebody else,” Adam said. “He was a 24-year-old man at a party with 500 people.”
It turned out that Levasseur had sent a text message around 1:30 a.m. April 22, the last message he ever made, Dunham said. State police detectives believe Levasseur likely shot himself shortly afterward.
Dimmock and Bowie don’t believe that an immediate search for Levasseur would have helped but said that wardens and state police, the agencies typically involved in searches, should begin searches a lot sooner with local search groups and volunteers.
A large-scale call for volunteers in the Levasseur search didn’t go out until April 24, and “there should not have even been a question at that point,” Dimmock said. “They have to say, ‘Hey, we have to jump on this quick and use all of our available resources.’”
The Orono-based search group Dirigo Search and Rescue Association gathered on the evening of April 24 at first unaware of whether a search would continue the next day, Dimmock said.
About 150 or so family members, friends and volunteers from several search groups searched for Levasseur on April 24 and 25.
A centralized search such as those practiced in Maine and in Vermont with state police or the warden service “immediately builds in a delay factor,” Bowie said. “If the local community was immediately notified of searches, and responds to them, a lot of these incidents would be over before the wardens showed up.”
Adam agreed that immediate call-outs would work more efficiently in some instances, but he and Palman said that with wardens handling an average of 485 searches annually — last year’s searches totaled 512 — an immediate call-out system probably would overwhelm the fragile coalition of all-volunteer searchers and tax other resources.
“If I were to notify them 1.33 times a day, then sooner or later I will be crying wolf,” Adam said, referring to the average number of callouts per day.
Adam said he and other wardens usually involve communities and local resources as soon as they can and frequently are called into searches by local officials but must balance available resources against a particular case’s requirements. Wardens try to distinguish between those who are lost, such as hikers who have gone off a trail, and those who do not want to be found, such as those who are attempting suicide or who suffer from mental illness.
“We are making decisions on the fly and we have to use our resources efficiently,” Adam said. “I can’t be putting out a page once a day saying, ‘I might need you,’ and then 20 minutes later saying, ‘You can stand down.’ They know now that when they get a page, I need them.”
The warden service spent $281,503 on searches last year, and about the same amount the two previous years. It has just begun tracking search success rates statistically during its July-to-July fiscal year, Adam said, but anecdotally speaking, he believes that the search success rate is very high, with only two or three people searched for last year remaining missing — and one of those was a homicide victim, Christiana Fesmire of Lewiston.
Another problem, Michaud of North Star Search and Rescue said, is that the treatment of search teams is erratic. In some parts of the state, volunteer searchers are treated professionally — in others, as bothersome, he said.
Much of that, Adam and Palman said, concerns search groups that fail to keep their $25 certifications up to date with the Maine Association for Search and Rescue or that fail to maintain good relations with individual wardens. Though it is an all-volunteer organization with no statutory power to enforce standards, the search and rescue association is relied upon by the warden service to help ensure that search groups maintain their skills with certifications, Adam and Palman said.
“We don’t want the liability as a group of calling out untrained services,” Palman said, adding that groups that are seen to behave unprofessionally, such as by criticizing wardens or search efforts on news websites, won’t be called to help with searches.
Adam said he encourages volunteers and search groups to participate in search efforts. Those untrained in search procedures can help out at search scenes in other ways, he said.
The Maine Association for Search and Rescue acting as a regulatory body without statutory approval is one of the system’s biggest problems, Bowie said. It causes a “failure to bring all the resources in all the time,” he added.
“In other words, you will have a search and rescue team in Orono that doesn’t know anything about a search going on in Orono. That happened two years ago,” Bowie said.
Down East Emergency Medicine Institute and North Star Search and Rescue are among at least four search groups excluded from the search call-up system because they are not certified by the Maine Association for Search and Rescue, “by this private club,” Bowie said. “They control who gets called.”
The association, and the warden service’s reliance upon it, has resulted in aircraft from Brunswick Naval Air Station being called into searches in Bangor while Down East search group aircraft already in Bangor sat idle, Bowie said.
Some of the people with Down East and other search groups not called upon have had national search certifications — and medical certifications to treat lost persons once found — and were quite qualified to help, said Dr. Robert Bowie, an emergency medicine physician who helped found the Down East group and is Richard Bowie’s twin brother.
Dr. Bowie said he worried that the Maine Association for Search and Rescue is too sensitive to criticism and that the organization’s critics would find themselves shut out of future searches.
“I would say that a system that cannot criticize itself, or allow criticism, is worrisome and will have difficulty improving,” he said.
Adam said his first preference for air searches is state resources such as the warden service, Maine Forest Service and Maine Marine Patrol because they are professionally staffed and equipped search units that do searches routinely.
It is far better, Richard Bowie said, for all search organizations to get an early start on searches under the control of town police and local fire departments than to wait for game wardens or state police. Control can transfer to the wardens when they arrive.
“They can take as much as an hour to get there,” Bowie said. “If we are waiting for an ambulance to come from Augusta, the outcome wouldn’t be good, so why do we have that time-delay factor built into search and rescue?”
Wardens and police have been more likely lately to call out uncertified search groups if they think the help is needed, Palman said. It is also part of a volunteer search group’s responsibilities to maintain good relations with wardens and other search groups.
What searchers see as notification delay is often wardens and others investigating a case enough to show that a search definitely is needed or to improve search efficiency, such as by finding the missing person’s family and friends to determine where the missing person last was seen or might be headed, Adam said. Wardens also must examine terrain and weather as part of their setting the scale of a search.
Sometimes Adam and other wardens decide that a search doesn’t need a large-scale response and the volunteer searchers disagree, Adam said. Sometimes, too, warden-organized searches face delayed notifications from other police agencies.
Wardens must triage search cases like doctors in an emergency room — a daunting, time-consuming task, Palman said.
But keeping search powers for those missing in Maine’s woods or on Maine’s water bodies should stay with the warden service, Adam said.
“The big thing about search in my opinion is that a town [agency, such as a fire department] might have a search once a year or once every 10 years, but we at Maine Warden Service do it all the time,” Adam said.
Dimmock, an untrained volunteer searcher, said he saw the profits of that warden service experience in the searches for his son, Levasseur and the most recent search for the missing Ayla Reynolds in Waterville.
Wardens and other searchers displayed excellent teamwork, efficiency, camaraderie, compassion and communication skills in the woods, Dimmock said.
“When it’s operational, it is clockwork. It is really amazing to watch them, impressive,” Dimmock said. “I am really a nobody in the whole scheme of things, but when I was at the Levasseur search, three-quarters of them remembered seeing me during the Ayla search. That tells me that they know people. One asked me to ensure that a whole group of volunteers was signed up. It felt good.”
Dimmock said he was well aware that search cases so often have endings that quicker searches wouldn’t have altered, such as his son’s, and that calling out searches faster could cause a lot of problems.
“It is a lot of money,” Dimmock said. “Here you are half a million dollars into the Ayla Reynolds case, and what do you have?”
The $500,000 price tag was an estimate by Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey of the total cost of the Reynolds investigation, including the cost of Waterville, state police and game warden overtime and regular pay for the searches for the missing girl, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Public Safety Department.
“You can’t jump at every whim and woe,” Dimmock added. “Levasseur might have disappeared with some girl and common sense is out the window. You have to understand that, but here it was Tuesday night and Dirigo doesn’t even have a confirmation about going out on a search Wednesday morning. That isn’t right. It needs to be fixed.”
Dimmock sees indications, however, that the system is improving.
“The Maine Warden Service is realizing that these independent search outfits are very helpful to them. They need to not be afraid to call us. It is free manpower,” he said. “They are starting to call us more.”
BDN writer Nok-Noi Ricker contributed to this report.
Follow BDN writer Nick Sambides Jr. on Twitter at @NickSam2BDN.
Hiker stupidly goes off trail on Mt. K and breaks leg – IMMEDIATE search, off the mtn. in record time.
Young adult at drug party goes missing – wait 2 days before even attempting to look for him.
That is total BS. The authorities started searching for the kids as soon as they knew he was missing. As for the broken leg circumstance, that is not a search. They know exactly where the hiker is so they dispatch a team to extract the hiker.
Right on…
A lot of people reported as missing, aren’t. They just aren’t doing what others expected.
So true and that is what the investigation part of a search hopefully uncovers so 150 volunteers aren’t sent out into the woods for someone who left a drinking party and ended up in a sorority house for a couple days. Every time volunteers are deployed on a search there is a chance one will be injured so it is important to insure that a search is really what is needed.
I have been involved in a few searches over the years. I prefer that K-9’s be used before you fill the woods with people. Very hard to work a track when there are so many of them in the woods. If the dog’s come up empty then use man power. People who are trained need to be used and a incident command needs to be set up so that the search is done correctly. Maybe the state needs to step in and require some type of certification or license like they do for EMT’s. Require training in certain areas and require annual updates. Right now they can join if they want. Think what would happen if EMT’s, Paramedics, nurses, cops, fire fighters were just allowed to do what they want with no training of licensing required. Seems he groups that are complaining are the one who don’t or won’t be bothered to join MASAR. If you want to be treated like professionals maybe you need to act like one….
MASAR does that already. Qualifications expire and must be renewed to remain on a certified search team.
MASAR standards do not meet or even come close to the national standard that has been set by DHS and FEMA.
At this point, there is no national standard but it is coming and one of the MASAR officers has been working on it. The MASAR standards for training, testing and certifying SAR personnel are some of the highest in the country. Our standards reflect conditions in Maine not, for example, California or Montana. Their standards would reflect their own unique conditions. Other states have used our K9 standards to develop their own. The National Association for Search and Rescue used the Maine Basics of SAR curriculum to write its own back in the 1980’s.
search and rescue is the same no matter what the state is. the only thing that is changed is sar techniques and gear that is specific to a type of terrain or condition. but there is no difference between california or montana using a gps or deploying a type 1 search team than it would be here in maine.
the national standard have been published and out since 18 nov 06. look at sar job titles 33-36 and that is the standard that is required for credentialing at those levels.
this is the sar job title 33: Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Manager
Description: A Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Manager is a Wilderness SAR Technician who also provides direct supervision, general leadership, wellness, and safety of Wilderness team members within an ICS Unit.Fulfillment of requirement(s) as stated in the following standard(s):
1. MRA 105.1, Operations Chief, or WSAR equivalent or NFPA 1021, Fire Officer
2. ASTM F-2209, or equivalent
3. NASAR SAR Tech I, or equivalent
4. NFPA 472 HazMat Awareness and/or OSHA 1910.120(Q)(6)(i), HazMat Awareness Training or equivalent basic instruction on responding to and operating in a CBRNE incident
Completion of the following baseline criteria:
5. OSHA 1910.120 and/or 1910.134(f) Respiratory Protection
6. Risk assessment
7. Hazard mitigation
8. PPE
9. Use of related tools and devices
Completion of the following courses and/or curricula:
10. ICS-100: Introduction to ICS
11. ICS-200: Basic ICS
12. ICS-300: Intermediate ICS
13. FEMA IS-700: NIMS, An Introduction
14. FEMA IS-800: NRP, An Introduction
15. NASAR MLPI (Managing the Lost Person Incident) or equivalent
16. ICS Supervisor or Manager level training
SAR Job Title 35: Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician
Description: A Wilderness Search and/or Rescue Technician is a member of a Wilderness SAR Team who searches for and rescues those in trouble in urban/suburban as well as other environments.
Fulfillment of requirement(s) as stated in the following standard(s):
1. MRA 105 Operational Level; or ASTM F-2209 or NASAR SAR Tech II; orequivalent
2. NFPA 472 HazMat Awareness and/or OSHA 1910.120(Q)(6)(i), HazMatAwareness Training or equivalent basic instruction on responding to andoperating in a CBRNE incident
3. Bloodborne/Airborne Pathogens per OSHA
4. DOI AM B-3 or equivalent
Completion of the following baseline criteria:
5. OSHA 1910.120 and/or 1910.134(f) Respiratory Protection
6. Risk assessment
7. Hazard mitigation, including lifting, dealing with animals and possible armedsubjects and criminals
8. PPE for 4 seasons in any of the anticipated areas of operation
9. Use of related SAR tools and devices
10. Various SAR Standards
11. Legal Aspects of SAR EMS, SAR risk, liability, insurance, and injury and death of members
12. SAR ethics, including dealing with families, confidentiality and media
13. Team and crew safety issues
14. For drivers: Driver’s safety
15. Personal and team physical, medical and behavioral wellness, fitness, and limitations
16. Wilderness weather
17. Survival and bivouac in four seasons in any anticipated areas of operations
18. Use of other resources including canines and other animals
19. Recognizing possible child predator situations
20. Awareness for search around swift/flood water, underground spaces
21. HazMat awareness to include drug labs
22. Animal technical rescue awareness
23. Documentation and record keeping for SAR and EMS
24. Field Communications, interoperability, equipment, proper use of phones, radios, data
25. Medical aid of self, team members, and customers
26. Customer evacuations, choices, methods, equipment
27. Helicopter operations in SAR for all seasons in all anticipated areas of operations, including;
• Types of Helicopters in SAR
• Risk Continuum: low risk to higher risk helicopter use
• Related FAA regulations
• Personal capabilities and limitations and preflight prep
• Helicopter capabilities and limitations
• Safety Briefing/ Aircraft familiarization, storage, Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) introduction
• Safety rules, dos and don’ts
• Helicopter-related Communications for SAR personnel
• Night operations
• Customers on helicopters, control of, consent issues
• Basic emergency procedures on ground and in flight
• Uses of helicopter adjuncts, such as NVG and FLIR
• Basic physiological effects of flight on personnel, customers and equipment
• Special-Use issues, hazards, and mitigation
• Ingress and egress training and practice in all methods to be used on operations, such as hover ingress-egress, etc.
Completion of the following courses and/or curricula:
27. ICS-100: Introduction to ICS
28. ICS-200: Basic ICS
29. FEMA IS-700: NIMS, An Introduction
30. CERT (G-371) or equivalent for disaster related responses
Could you site your source for this?
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/sar_jobtitle_111806.pdf
This document is not a national standard. It is a draft that is still a work in progress. One of the MASAR officers has been participating in its creation since Nov 2007. At this point, the MASAR standards meet and in some instances exceed those in the draft.
sorry jennifer, but the national search and rescue standard is the most current standard that is published and it is not a draft document as you claim. fema and dhs set the national standard. this is a fema document in which you claim is not the national standard. go to fema and pull up the nims alerts that have been published. go to the 2006 year and look for alert 18-06: search and rescue positions. this is the national standard to be followed up until it is superseded.
http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/NIMSalertsArchive.shtm
OK cougar 64 you’ve figured out who I am but who are you???
Really, these may purport themselves as the new standards but they aren’t yet.
you are really not hard to figure out jennifer. your ego gives it away. i am just another maine native that’s working behind the scenes to make maine a better place like it use to be in the 60’s and 70’s.
since deb has not answered my question twice as of yet, maybe you can. what is the maine state law that was drawn up and enacted upon by the maine legislative body that authorizes masar, what law does masar get its authority to operate and be the control for all search and rescue in maine.
Yes, I’m pretty easy. If you know who I am, you know I’ve been at this for a lot of years and have a backpack full of experiences. So why aren’t you giving up your identity.
I don’t think you understand the position of MASAR. Read our mission statement. We exist to be a liason from the volunteer teams to WS. We have written standards for teams to train to. We provide educational opportunities such as the spring training this weekend in Ellsworth. We have a nationally acclaimed instructor presenting both Sat and Sunday. We have other instructors teaching simultaneously. The organization is made up of representatives from each of the teams. It isn’t a stand alone organization.
I’m not sure why you seem to be looking at MASAR as an adversary which I detected from your characterization of MASAR as having controlling policies. There is no “law” from which MASAR gets any authority. All we have been striving to do is to present WS with the best trained teams we are able. The only people who seem to have a problem with this are the people who don’t want to train to the standards and get certified.
Would you prefer to have Jim Bob off the street who has no idea how to search or what to search for looking for someone you care about or a trained person who knows how to navigate, clue detect, man track and who is equipped to render first aid and get more assistance. When you question the validity of MASAR you are questioning the validity of all the volunteer teams and their personnel. I know that is not your goal but in essence that is the result.
Because of the efforts of MASAR, each volunteer team is much more professional than even a decade ago. MASAR is not trying to be exclusive but inclusive of those who truly want to do the job right.
I don’t think he’s questioning the validity of MASAR. It sounds like he’s questioning why MASAR appears to act the “Old Boys’ Club” and only picking and chosing who they keep and use. Teams that are more distant away get the call before the local team that would have a quicker response time. Political favorism is huge in Maine. Blacklisting and blackballing is nothing new in Maine or anywhere else. Go back and read the article. How many times is it mentioned that you need to speak softly and curry up to the right folks?
I’ve seen where rules have been changed to deliberately exclude or prevent assets from being used. Agencies have been on the receiving end of phone calls and told that if certain assets are used that MWS and MESARD won’t bother to help out if requested in the future. Call me stupid but that sounds like blackmail to me….
You are so funny. In an above post you say the documents are only drafts and not yet in effect and still in the working stages and then when it’s pointed out that they are not and have been around longer then that suddenly you admit they aren’t new standard but old ones. On a side note, if you guys have been working on these things since 2007 and still not done, what does that say for your system?
It says that they can’t agree on anything. Sound familiar? Guaranteed there is a grant supported by the taxpayers to support this bureaucratic bu__sh_t!
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nims/508-8_search_and_rescue_resources.pdf
Wow..Someone could die of hypothermia in the time it takes to read that list. I miss the good ole days..with that list Anyone would be lucky to have 2 people looking for them. Everything these days has to be certified, registered, licensed,tested, inspected, selected, insured, verified, testified, bared witness to, proven….It’s absolutely crazy.
Hey, If my kid gets lost in the woods, I don’t care if you are an illegal alien I’ll appreciate the help.
the events of 9-11 have forced these standards of training on all responders in order to be credentialed and that is very good for those that are in need of assistance.
what i have a heartburn about is the masar committee and especially the officer’s, attacking search and rescue teams that do not join the club even to the point where phone calls are made from state of maine officials and even sar team members, to other states that have requested assistance from deemi. there was talk at one time, that if a sar team from maine went to another state, that team had to get permission from the warden service to leave. talk about control issues.
this is the type of information that can be read when a freedom of information act is submitted and you can just see how much hostility the wardens, et al, have with non member sar teams and to the lengths they will go in order to control all search and rescue efforts and people. it is only going to get worse and the solution is to remove the wardens from this power and control and turn search and rescue over to the county sheriffs so they can dispatch their nearest sar team.
Regarding the past search in VT, if that is what you are talking about, the Vermont agency in charge of SAR called the Maine SAR people to find out who DEEMI was.
It seems I read about that search. Didn’t they find that guy??? After 3 months of local resources looking and not finding????
Sounds like ya’ll are just nasty when you think somone else gets to jump in your playpen.
Yup what happened to keeping it simple.
Oh ya…forgot qualified :-)
Do you actually believe and play into all that garble? Probably voted for the Messiah, too.
no i did not vote for the messiah and how/who i voted for has nothing to do with the article. i do believe and play into all that garble because i have been doing these things since 1979 and have built up my qualifications over the years. as a matter of fact, i am a qualified instructor in many of those areas.
look at civil air patrol. they do the very same things for their search and rescue qualifications. how do i know that. because i helped write the standard and the training curriculum, i was a wing director of emergency services and implemented a search and rescue training academy many years ago for the state that i lived in. that sar academy is still being used today to train both cadets and senior members both. i even helped write the model of ems scope of practice for the advanced practice paramedic several years ago.
these search and rescue standards are no different than the standards that are used by firefighters, ems and even emergency management.
There is allot o “I” this and “I'” that going on here. I’m not surprised that you came here from another State. BTW the CAP is a joke and a federally funded one at that. As a pilot, I can tell you that the CAP does little in Northern Maine. I haven’t seen a CAP plane in years.People have to take responsibility for their own actions. When some adrenaline junkie goes rock climbing and falls, he should be left to his own instincts to survive. If he survives, he’ll be better prepared next time, guaranteed.
i was born and raised here in maine. i left the state to pursue a military career. cap in this state does more than you realize. i personally have two of my former cadets that are pilots in the united states air force. one is currently in alaska flying rescue c-130’s and the other is currently flying the new stealth fighter and those are just the two that i am aware of.
i am proud of all my qualifications, i have worked hard and spent many thousands of hours and dollars to maintain those skills and the same for my former cap cadets. those have been very rewarding over the years, like working with a former vice president of the united states and also a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. its not everyday that you are the tactical medic assigned to those high level of people.you are a cold, calculated heartless son of a * for saying what you have said about being left to his own instincts to survive. you are not a human being, you are nothing but an animal. i hope your guide customers see your comment and i hope that you have your guide license pulled by the wardens once they figure out who you are. lets just hope and pray that you don’t eat your own words when go rock climbing and fall.
Just as the diamond requires three properties for its formation—carbon, heat, and pressure—successful leaders require the interaction of three properties—character, knowledge, and application. Like carbon to the diamond, character is the basic
quality of the leader. . . . But as carbon alone does not create a diamond, neither can character alone create a leader. The diamond needs heat. Man needs knowledge, study and preparation. . . . The third property, pressure—acting in conjunction with carbon and heat—forms the diamond. Similarly, one’s character attended by knowledge, blooms through application to produce a leader.
GEN Edward C. Mayer, Chief of Staff of the Army (1979–1983)
The NASAR standards were compiled to deal with alot of situations. Alot of states gave input. I doubt that Maine deserves all the credit. In fact, alot of states use the NASAR standards to write their own, tailored to their particular situation. Not to sound snippy, but I sure hope you guys don’t search in other states ’cause it sounds like you only know how to work in your own state.
The truth of the matter is NASAR took a curriculum written in Maine and used it to write theirs. At this point, it has gone through many revisions and the NASAR standard is now a much more extensive document. What you see now bears little resemblance to the first BASAR course originally written here. The present MASAR standards have also evolved into a very different document.
At some point in the future, the NIMS SAR standard will become the national standard but it isn’t there yet.
The K9 unit has searched in NH and VT as well as the Maritimes. Maine standards and NH standards are pretty close with a few insignificant exceptions.
If you want the Truth Of The Matter, the roots of NASAR began back in the 60s-70s by a team in Virginia. Maine SAR has never been the center of the SAR universe.
You are absolutely right. NASAR was started by a VA group back in the 70’s and I am friends with some of the dog handlers who were part of that group. Does the name Syrotuck ring a bell? No Maine isn’t the center of the SAR universe but we have a darned good track record. We can always learn more thus the two day conference this weekend in Ellsworth.
Beg pardon here – NASAR originally was founded and configured as an association of agency SAR Coordinators (Fed,State and County) not search teams. It took a few years before volunteer SAR teams were allowed to join.
OK, I don’t have a problem admitting a mistake. I think you’re right. I may have been thinking of the American Rescue Dog Association being started in VA by volunteers many of whom are friends although most have given up handling a dog in SAR.
DHS and FEMA There are a couple of intities that should not even be discussed in this situation. Thanks anyway, but I’ll take my chances on my own.
The Maine Warden Service does an excellent job conducting search and rescue missions however Maine is a very large state and needs the benefits that other SAR organizations can bring to the table. We have several entities within the state that can bring trained SAR members, medical professionals, technical climbers, canine rescue, and aircraft and marine resources. When a person goes missing in the Maine woods, time is of the essence and every resource that can be put together should be called into action. This should be done as soon as a missing person is reported, not days later. The missing person and their families deserve the attention of all of the resources we have available.
well said thanks Doc Bowie
Maine is a big place and it’s very helpful to know where to search before charging into the woods. That takes time for the Wardens to concentrate their resources when it will do the most good. It must first be determined that the missing person is in fact in the woods and not somewhere else and usually law enforcement officials determine this even before the Warden service gets notified.
How about avoiding getting lost to begin with? Was there a compass or GPS that someone knew how to use? Shouldn’t go places where you are not familiar with without being prepared. Charge these people for the search if they’re going to be so irresponsible, as to not be prepared. I won’t take a vehicle into the woods with out whatever I need to spend an unexpected night or two in the woods.
Maine Wardens service has a top notch search protocol. i have personally helped them pull a body from the water in Acadia National Park. they searched for 2 days round the clock with k-9 and then started volunteers. people who are in these search groups do a great job, but are most of the time raring to go and a little over vealous. in a way they are glory seekers wanting to be the person to find an individual missing or dead. let our system work and let the proffesionals do there job they will call you in when there ready for you.lets not drive these search groups down the throats of the Maine Wardens Serrvice
The warden service needs to be the central clearing house of SAR. Without a central command cell all the assets (volunteer groups) could be wasted without a legitimized organized search effort. Imagine if more than one SAR happened in a week, who sets the priority based on the circumstance? Is it a child, an elderly person or an experienced hiker with appropriate equipment. As far as DEEMI goes, why don’t they get certified? what about the 4 or 5 Hueys received thru the government? How come they are stripped of parts sitting on the ramp in Bangor? where’d the parts go? Any money involved? They have talent but the government has supplemented the org with equipment and still no effort for certification but plenty of news releases. The Warden Service has the training to conduct and organize necessary search efforts and no matter what will be the ones held responsible for the outcome regardless of what law is changed
DEEMI has been reviewed by the GSA and other federal agencies as they are required since they have government surplus property. If you have something that contradicts, then put the proof on the table. The helo’s that are sitting on the ramp outside of their hanger, were received in that condition.
The MASAR certification process and their standard is not even recognized at the national level. MASAR choose to re-write the book instead of utilizing a time proven and tested national standard that is set forth with NASAR. The standards of Civil Air Patrol are higher than MASAR.
MASAR didn’t rewrite the book. NASAR chose to use our book to write their’s. This occured back in the 1980’s. Since then the MASAR standards have been rewritten to strengthen them.
Actually, NASAR’s were written back in the 70s. Stick to the facts.
Oh come on now Deb, you are stretching it with Maine being top dog in New England and the East Coast. The search and rescue system is broken. You cannot launch an effective search for a missing person with 3 or 4 wardens. When you do this, you end up in recovery mode instead of rescue mode nine times out of ten.
Search and Rescue in other states as she claims there is no one in charge and it is chaos, well that is bull dung. I have personally been on teams in both Kansas and Missouri and out there, the county sheriff is in charge of search efforts in their respective county. The actual searching is done by all volunteer search and rescue teams, who are searching where ever they are called either in-state or out of state on their own dime.
The majority of the teams are NASAR certified, which you will not find up here in Maine, since they have their own little certification standard where they have re-invented the wheel instead of utilizing a proven and time tested Nationally recognized organization and standard.
When a person goes missing and the notifications to local law enforcement are placed, they in turn notify the nearest volunteer search and rescue team, and they immediately activate their alert system and start rolling for where ever they need to be. They will have all boots on the ground including Search and Rescue Incident Management overhead with 20-30 responder out performing their assigned tasks. I am a certified Search and Rescue Incident Commander and I would never run a search mission like they do up here in Maine, never.
Law_n_DisOrder, that was such a great idea that it’s already been done! The “club” that is bad mouthed in this article… Maine Association for Search And Rescue… is exactly that. An organization that requires certain training and certifications in order for units and individuals to be certified to search in Maine. The SAR units who are interested in helping, not in getting their names in lights, are following those rules and are getting/maintaining this certification. The others? They’re just complaining.
If Maine would utilize the national standard that has been set forth with NASAR, then there would not be any discussion going on. MASAR is a club that decided that their “own standards” are better than all the other states including the one that is set by DHS and FEMA.
there is no requirement in the state of maine to be search and rescue certified. no law has been passed by the legislative body requiring any kind of search and rescue certification. deemi trains to nasar standards which is above and beyond masar basar course.
its pilots are faa certified and the majority of its members are highly trained ex-military members. you would think an operation with hummers and aircraft would be utilized by our over stretched and under-funded warden service.
What use are Hummers for searching in thick woods? The video DEEMI recently posted on You Tube, showing dash cam footage of the Hummer’s entire drive from Orono to the Howland search, was beyond ridiculous. What the heck was that even recorded for??
obviously you know nothing or very little about search and rescue operations whether in the wilderness or urban setting. hummers are a mode of transportation for both gear and crew. now if you can come up with a way to accomplish the mission without the use of vehicles, i would love to see it happen.
I use my own car and don’t need a “hummer” to get to the assembly point.
and how much gear can you carry in your car. can you carry a stokes litter, long spine board, short spine board, oxygen tanks, trauma kit, personal and vehicle survival kits, communications gear, incident management gear, accountability systems, etc.
how far into the wilderness can you take your car. i can guarantee that h1 hummer will go more places in rural maine where your car can’t.
but i am sensing you do not like the military or even its taxpayer surplus equipment and gear that is still fully usable and serviceable. who do you think developed mast trousers. it was the military. who has developed medical training especially when dealing with trauma and other high risk situations allowing a much higher patient survival. the military did with their trauma committee in which now those military training standards are being taught to civilian medical personnel.
My goodness , why not just put radio collars on everybody just like we do with our rabbit dogs. Would be much less expensive and easier to transport.
and putting radio collars on everyone would accomplish what. nothing. your comment is baseless and pointless. obviously another ignorant liberal.
Sharken23, why do you think i posted this video? Doc Bowie for DEEMI
Maybe it’s becaue you don’t want to play by their rules and would rather make your own.
Why is it that everything people are talking about on here has nothing to do with the article that was printed in the Bangor Daily. Is the article to hard to understand, I seen nothing in there that would make me believe that anyone was displeased with the Maine Warden Service, or with the club called Maine Association Search And Rescue. I think the article was merely pointing out a system that may or may not be flawed in one aspect or not. What is all of this going on here?
Try rereading the article. DEEMI doesn’t like the way the Warden Service runs a search. They think their way of calling out everyone from the very first is better when in fact LEO/WS needs to first determine if the missing person is truly missing and secondly is somewhere in the woods rather than somewhere else.
Well I have read the article and I have to admit that I really like the idea that if we have resources here in the State Maine that they should be utilized and they should not be sitting idlely by. I have a family and if anyone of my family members ever came up missing I would want every available resource called immediately wouldn’t you? or is your family not that important to you? I look at this article and take everyone’s view point into consideration and look at both sides of it the big question I think everyone involved in SAR needs to ask themselves is WHAT IF, what if it was your family what would you want done? and would it be enough? or could there have been something more? I think DEEMI stated the Maine Warden Service conducted the search in Howland Flawlessly and according to their protocol, I also think that the article is merely pointing out the difference between what is going on in Vermont right now and seeing it would or would not work here in the State Of Maine. What say you?
the rules that we play by are set at dhs/fema, therefore national rules and standards. go look up and read the national standards that have been set forth.
designing a national emergency responder credentialing system – sar working group dated november 2006. this document sets all of the criteria that is not only recommended, but required.
sar job titles 4-6 set the standard for helicopter pilot and crew chiefs.
sar job titles 33-36 set the standard for wilderness search and rescue.
The Maine Association for Search and Rescue (MASAR) would be happy to certify a group that meets or exceeds its standards. MASAR certified Units and Search Team Members do not have to take the BASAR course or MASAR training to certify. MASAR does accept NASAR SAR Tech. certifications as being equivalent to BASAR training. Read the MASAR standards on line at the MASAR web site. Any group or individual that meets these standards can apply for certification. As of 2012, twelve volunteer groups in the state have been certfied by MASAR. MASAR would certainly welcome more. At a large search, Warden Service can use all the properly trained and qualified people it can get. Searching is serious business. It requires people who are physically fit, able to travel in the deep woods without getting hurt or lost, and who are trained to look for lost people or the sign they leave behind.
Maine does not use a national certification for their standards. They use their own search and rescue standard that they have developed in house and it is called BASAR.
The only so called national certification is through National Association for Search and Rescue. They used the Maine standards back in the 1980s to write theirs or more accurately they adopted our standard.
No, they sifted through the needs of many different areas (northern woods, southern coasts, deserts, mountains) and wrote a standard that encompassed ALL of those features. The world does not revolve around Maine.
technically there are two other national certifications in search and rescue. one of them is mountain rescue association (mra) and then you have astm standards which involve: equipment, maintenance, and testing; management and operations; along with personnel, training, education. if nasar is a “so called” national certification, then why is it used all over the united states and canada. get your facts straight.
here is the link to the astm standard in case you are not familiar with them: http://www.astm.org/Standards/search-and-rescue-operations-standards.html
here is the link to mountain rescue association which is the oldest search and rescue organization in the united states, forming back in 1959. http://www.mra.org/
Oh yes, am well aware of both. MRA is the gold standard in rescue.
I have known Michaud for a number of years and one thing I can tell you for sure is that he is no publicity hunter. I have had the pleasure of working for this man on his search team for years, not to mention we use to work together on the allagash wilderness waterway and I have never noticed anything but professionalism from this individual. I watched him search for a women up here in Aroostook County a few years ago that team searched day and night and all through the winter his team and all the members never gave up searching for that individual. Where were you then? the team that he operates worked very well with the wardens and local law enforcement personnel and at no time did he ever hunt down the media. I suspect that the media may have contacted him and asked a couple of questions. Case in point, I believe if you read the article he stated ( The Maine Warden Service Does A Wonderful Job ) what is wrong with that. Maybe the system is broken a little, maybe there could be some fixes to it, but is that necessary to call him a publicity hunter. I can tell you this when someone is lost, injured, sick, or in trouble this man has one thing on his mind and that is finding them and getting them help or home safely without regard to his own safety, so don’t bash him here without knowing this individual personally. You may also not know that this individual is one of few civilian search and rescue personnel that has graduated from the National Search And Rescue School who also took it with 7 different Maine Game Wardens at the same time depoly on a search and rescue mission while attending the school. So please stick to the article, respond about what the article is really about.
Is medical care part of search and rescue? Doc Bowie
medical care plays a very big role in search and rescue operations. search is an operation using available personnel and facilities to locate persons in distress and rescue is a operation to retrieve person in distress, provide for their initial medical or other needs, and deliver them to a place of safety.
but when the rescue turns in to recovery mode, then obviously it is too late for medical. under the national search and rescue model that was developed by fema in esf 9, under medical specialist depending on what type rating the sar team has, medical can range from having ems unit on standby to having a national standard emt curriculum with acls and btls certifications for a wilderness type 1 sar team.medical is taught to cadets and senior members both in civil air patrol as that is a requirement for ground team member and ground team leader certifications and the same goes for all sar teams that use nasar as their sar standard.
Absolutely. Some First Aid credential is part of the Ground Searcher certification requirement. A high number of the personnel making up the individual units are EMTs ranging from Basic to Paramedic. Many have Wilderness training ranging from Wilderness First Aid, First Responder and EMT. The K9 team alone has 2 Paramedics, 5 Wilderness First Responders, 4 Wilderness First Aid and an EMT out of 22 handlers. As soon as a victim is found a field assessment is completed. The findings are radioed to the CP and if warranted an ambulance will be dispatched to meet the rescue team bringing the victim out of the woods.
You can’t treat them until you find them.
really. i was not aware of that. isn’t this the day of star trek medicine were we can treat the patient by telepathic.
thank you for educating drbobmd who is a practicing er physician in that small minor fact.
I have an idea how about we get the State legislators to give the responsibility of search and rescue to the Forest Service, hey they are the ones that developed the Incident Command Structure which they use to fight forest fires with, they also have the helicopters and vehicles, they have more manpower than the Maine Warden Service, they have helicopters and planes, boats and all the necessary toys, They are used to using civilian personnel especially with their fire fighting in deep wooded areas. They are not afraid to work at night, they have all the aerial photo’s of Maine wooded areas, and know most of the landowners who owns the wooded areas. They know the wood roads better than the Wardens do, they have up to date GPS and computer equipment and they work very well with the civilian population. They are all graduates of the criminal Justice academy and sworn law enforcement officers as well.
actually the incident command system was first developed by the state of california in the very early 70’s. it was called firescope. the feds liked it so well, they adopted it as the national standard.
Cool I did not know that
It is situations like the present one that make it hard for DEEMI to earn the trust of law enforcement and other certified SAR Units. Look at the big picture. If I had a complaint about the way patients were being treated at St. Joseph’s Hospital, the first place I would take my concerns would be the hospital itself so I can learn about the process and try to fix problems cooperatively. I would not air my complaints in public in the Bangor Daily News. It is unprofessional and unethical and might damage the reputation of the hospital with unfair public criticism.
How are law enforcement agencies going to feel about a SAR organization that wants to be part of the SAR system but doesn’t participate in the system and publicly tries to discredit it? What agency will trust an organization with the sensitive and confidential information involved in searches if that organization criticizes the system in the press rather than participate in making the system better?
Well said!!!! Sounds like he wants to be somebody he isn’t….maybe
a Game Warden!
I think the warden service does and did do a great job on this case.
I voted yes in the poll above but I must qualify my vote. I think that volunteer groups should be notified but should be in stand by mode until the investigative proceedures that the police and wardens conduct are completed.
To address the poll question, I feel the question is too vague.I would think that a few parameters would have to be met before sounding the alarm.
Been through the search and rescue process twice in 20 yrs and unless you have been through it, out searching for a missing loved one you really dont have any business commenting on how to go about it. The first search and rescue we used a hummer to get through the rough terrain. The second we had NO help from warden service, they were to busy “it being day before opening day of hunting season. ” Those last few words were from a wardens mouth, not mine. Both cases we found our loved ones, but it was to late. May they rest in peace.
I’m with you on this. I know of two times that MWS or MESARD didn’t have the time or resources to respond UNTIL the family contacted other people to help out. As soon as MWS learned this BAM! Suddenly, there were tons of people to help and the first thing they did was boot out the other search folks the family had gotten in to help while MWS stood around and complained about it. Even after an event (where the subject is still unlocated) MWS doesn’t like other teams to go in behind them. Publically, they are all for it but privately, they whine and cry and put out the word that there will be reprecussions for using outside resourses.
MESARD always has the time to respond to a lost person incident but we do not deploy until requested by the agency in charge.
There are over 4000 registered Maine guides licensed in the state. Some are non-residents but the vast majority live in Maine. We are all trained in Lost Person Scenarios and proficient with woods navigation. We should be on a call list especially if the lost person is in our neck of the woods.
Thank you for the offer, but it is unrealistic for MASAR or the Maine Warden Service to make 4000 plus individual phone calls when someone goes missing. If you would like to be called out, please join a volunteer SAR group that is on the call out list, and they will call you out once they have confirmed that you are qualified to be called out. There is a list of volunteer SAR Units on the MASAR web site.
Thanks Deborah, I will look into that. I did not suggest 4000 calls, that’s why I mentioned guides in the ” neck of the woods ” that someone is lost in. I have to assume now, that the qualifications to be confirmed to be called must go above and beyond being a Mater Maine Guide.
The qualifications have some similarities, but there is additional training and a physical fitness test that needs to be passed to be certified as a Search Team Member. Members also have to maintain their training and contact with their groups. SAR groups welcome members with true woods experience. “Woods craft” is sorely lacking in the general public.
Also, with today’s technology and cell phones…call trees are easily built. We get a text from WABI by 5 am when our son’s school cancels or weather updates, headline news…so, getting a hold of people would not require 4000 phone calls…
If you can help us to set this up for MASAR, we would appreciate it. It has to be a secure system that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and able to page out different SAR groups according to their location and certifications. Right now we rely on MASAR volunteers who have to sacrifice their ability to respond to searches to man the phones and York County Emergency Management to get the word out.
I’m already on it….Will let you know what I come up with.
Thanks, my contact information is on the MASAR web site if you can help.
Contacting 4000 people may not be hard, but when 100 of them call back to say they are responding to the search (we need to know who is coming for planning purposes), the receiving phone lines get glutted. This is why the search call out process goes through the Units. The Unit contacts call back with numbers for their Unit.
Without question, Maine Guides have a lot to offer in a lost person search. Some are also SAR team members. Maine Search and Rescue Dogs has 6 Maine Guides on its roster as dog handlers or flankers.
Well since this article has created such a debate I figured I would do some research on this group who call themselves MASAR. Just from searching their website and viewing others around the country it appears to me that they are behind the curve ball on a lot of issues, and by the responses they are placing on here I can see that they are a little bit immature about the way other people view their club to be. Maybe and this is just a suggestion they should step back take a look at the whole picture and ask themselves WHAT IF. What about using the Maine Guides Association? The Maine Trappers Association? or how about the Sportmans Alliance Of Maine? to help field some of those professionals on search missions or does it have to be members of a search and rescue team. I am quite sure those people have just as much talent and qualifications to search as anyone from the MASAR Club does. By looking at your website there is really not a whole lot of information which make me or anyone else looking at it to believe that you really do a whole lot, for a club to advocate so hard on one article to have a website like yours which looks shady at least leaves a common civilian like me to believe that your whole organization is shady to say the least. I also noticed that while looking at other sites around the country that most of the searches in other states are organized by the Sherriff departments? why isn’t it like that here?
I think this article is merely pointing out that maybe the system needs to be looked at, and that it really isn’t pointing fingers at anyone it is pointing toward the system. What I see on here is a group fighting amoung itself, and trying to find out who has more power and not what is in the betterment or how do we improve the search capabilities here in the State Of Maine.
by the looks of it I would not trust anyone other than the Wardens, Maine Guides, Forestry, or local Law enforcement or the Military to look for my family because it seems you all can get a long. At least I know those professionals would bust a gut to try and find my family and would not stop just because it got dark out. ( by the what is up with that? I noticed that when searching around that searches are suspended during the night ) I could care a less who has what or who does what I would just want one of my fmaily members found if the need should ever arise.
Apparently you aren’t very familiar with SAR in Maine. Searches aren’t suspended in Maine because of darkness. Many are initiated after dark. I know this because for the last 28 years I’ve responded to searches and covered may acres of woodlands in the dark using a glow stick on my dog and a headlamp to see.
I have friends all over this country in SAR and most are envious of the one agency in charge approach Maine has taken. It may be a hard concept but Maine is a leader in SAR and we as citizens are very fortunate to have WS in charge.
Thanks for your views and thanks for taking the time to look at the MASAR web site.
The function of MASAR is to serve as a networking, training and credentialing organization for volunteer SAR units. It is a non-profit association, not a “club.” Any SAR Unit can belong to it. Individuals can belong to it.
MASAR does not run the searches, the Maine Warden Service does. MASAR only reponds at their request and do what they direct. Currently we serve as the organization that calls out the majority of SAR units for large searches. There is nothing that says Warden Service cannot call out Units on their own, and they do so regularly. There is also nothing that says the members of the general public, local fire or police or any other organization can’t respond to a search or look for a missing person in places the general public is allowed to go. There is a law that says that the Maine Warden Service must be notified of persons who are lost, missing or overdue in the woods or waters of Maine.
The most effective and efficient way to search is to use people who are trained and equipped to search. MASAR’s mission is to try to provide those trained and equipped personnel.
Those with extensive SAR experience understand that the most efficient and effective way to search is too look for the sign or “clues” a lost person leaves behind as well as for the lost person, because there are more clues to be found than one person, and the clues will lead to the person. Untrained personnel tend to look for the person, trampling and disregarding the clues on the way. Untrained personnel often get lost or injured and become part of the problem rather than the solution. By policy, MASAR does not dispatch untrained personnel because of the liability involved. However, if Warden Service directs us to dispatch uncertified groups, MASAR will call them.
There is often important and confidential information given to searchers that should not be disseminated to the general public, so the conduct and ethics of a SAR Unit and their members is important. Some Units have background checks for their members. We don’t want child molesters out looking for lost children. Not all the organizations you mention that we should call require training in SAR or operational guidelines for conduct.
The Maine Warden Service was put in charge of SAR in the early 1980’s because the state recognized the need to have one agency be in charge of inland SAR. Warden Service was chosen because they had the most experience running searches, the most “woods wise” personnel, the most appropriate out door equipment and made the commitment to get training in search management and the best way to run searches. In many western states, the sheriff’s offices perform this function, and they have special personnel to run the searches. The SO s in Maine do not have this capability, nor do they have the budget to do so. The Coast Guard runs searches on Maine’s salt water.
As for “fighting among oursevles,” MASAR Unit members and state agencies meet quarterly where we review searches, discuss procedures, problems, etc. and try to find ways to do SAR better for the public of Maine. DEEMI has chosen not to attend meetings and has decided not to be part of this process. North Star was a certified MASAR member up until 2010 when they stopped paying dues and stopped communicating with MASAR. During 2011 MASAR sent them numerous e-mails, made phone calls and finally sent a registered, return receipt letter (the receipt was returned, signed by Mr. Michaud) asking them if they were still active as a SAR Unit so we could leave North Star on our call out list. Receiving no answer, MASAR removed North Star from its membership roles. Just recently Mr. Michaud contacted me and asked what North Star needed to do to rejoin MASAR.
Both DEEMI and North Star and members of the public are welcome to attend the MASAR meetings, and bring their concerns up directly to MASAR and the Maine Warden Service rather than in the BDN.
I am only trying to present the truth and a more balanced view of MASAR’s role in the SAR process than that presented by DEEMI and the newspaper article.
MASAR would like to see DEEMI be part of the Maine SAR process. Their digital imaging process has located at least two missing persons that I am aware of, and Maine SAR can always use medical and logistical support, as well as ground searchers. However, it is hard for MASAR to work with them when they only communicate through a BND blog.
Some people hate losing control of even a tiny bit of their power.
To clarify more on this article, the family concerns and the article in VT
led the Bangor Daily news to contact us. They asked each person questions about
SAR in Maine vs Vermont and published this article. We gave our opinions .
DEEMI recently did a Freedom of Information Act request to find out what was
going on with MASAR and the Wardens service in relation to our rescue.
There were over 200 emails between MASAR and Wardens discussing DEEMI. These
even involved our out of state searches, ie) our searching with our high
resolution imaging aircraft for the missing Middlebury, VT student Nick Garza.
We did image him underwater traveling down stream and helped the family find
closure of a loved one. There is FAA certification for that mission, and there
is no MASAR equivalent. The MASAR leadership and many of the present
commenter’s are in those emails. I think we need to be careful of pointing
fingers inappropriately. DEEMI has many times “turned the other cheek” over
our 21 years of existence. We have many certificaitons and assets to help
search and the wardens should call them when they can help find the lost.
Doc Bowie for DEEMI
If DEEMI really wants Wardens to call them, why doesn’t DEEMI contact the Wardens and/or MASAR and talk to them directly instead of requesting old e-mails and commenting in the BDN?
where is or what is the maine state law that has been passed by the maine legislative body that requires masar to be formed and all of the directives that have been enacted by the masar body.
No law. MASAR was formed by the members of the volunteer SAR units themselves in response to the need for trained and competent volunteers to work at SAR incidents. Membership is voluntary and certification is voluntary. It just happens that most of the SAR groups in the state belong and have chosen to be certified. Certification allows the Warden Service to know what kind of product it is getting when they call for volunteers.
kinder comments found here from Councilor Doughty
http://www.ourstory.com/thread.html?t=555731
Doc Bowie
I would rather have 20 people that Law Enforcement respects and relies on searching for me if I’m lost than 150 people from different organizations who think they know best. Keep up the great work Law enforcement and certified search teams who are team players.
Well what is going on here, the other day I am sitting in my office BDN called me I did not seek them out as some are implying here with their comments. I was asked what I thought about the situation in Vermont compaired to the way searches are conducted here in the State Of Maine, I was asked how the Maine Warden Service does and I specifically stated ( THE MAINE WARDEN SERVICE DOES A WONDERFUL JOB ) I did comment that in my opinion the system is broken, I did state that after looking at the Vermont incident that maybe the state of Maine should possibly look into finding ways to do things better. To the latter I did state that treatment of some search teams is a little different in different parts of Maine, but I did not state that the Maine Warden Service treated anyone or team different my comment on that was directed to the other search teams within the state. Now lets clearify something here the only reason that North Star Search And Rescue stepped away from the MASAR Organization is because of the way it was being run totally unprofessional at the time so we figured we would stay in our own little area here in Aroostook County, after all we have the largest county east of the Mississippi to cover. Today I get bombarded with phone calls from members of our team here asking me if I have seen what is being written on here, I sat by last night and watched as officers of MASAR systematically tore other SAR teams and individuals apart. Is this really the perception you want the general public to see you as? if so why would anyone call you for help? and if you say it is because you are trained then you had better rethink that senario because it is not working to good for you. As Deb stated I did email her and ask what this team owed for dues as I thought maybe just maybe under her tenure that things may have changed, now I am not so sure may have to re-think this and look at it some more. The Wardens deserve the best when they ask for help they don’t care about petty jealouseness or trivial matters within a club they want bodies and need bodies when someone is lost. So this I say to all of you get over yourselves and do the job you say you are trained to do.
Mr. Michaud very well put, I have found nothing wrong with your organization all your members are dressed the same, your uniforms look very professional and your personnel speak very well to Law Enforcement when approached to them. Your organization is very professional and are really concerned and detailed oriented as evidenced during the Tela Hart search here in Aroostook County. You all keep driving on doing what you all do best and don’t worry about the nay sayers, I will call your team any day of the week and twice on Sunday because I know without a doubt what we would get. Thank you for the time and trainings you all do to make sure we can enjoy the outdoors and know that if anything did happen you will be there no matter what.
After reading all this stuff on here I really do feel sorry for those families who have lost loved ones in our wooded and waterways of this state. It is a wonder that anything actually could ever get done the way these organizations fight amoung themselves this is totally unbelievable. Has anyone actually sat down and put themselves in their shoes, have you all really sat and thought about how foolish you all sound by typing all this crap over a silly little article in which you all really never touched on at all. This blows my mind how you all could do this, it really must be a cluster out there on searches by the way these comments show on here.
Actually, it is much better that we have these discussions here than disagree at a search. That is why MASAR has debriefs for searches at every meeting.
While I would like to continue this discussion about SAR in Maine, I have to run the MASAR annual training that occurs this weekend.
Sorry if the MASAR officers sound defensive, but I felt that the comments about MASAR made by DEEMI in the BDN needed a response.
At first I didn’t like having to defend MASAR in the blog, but now I see that I have had more communication with DEEMI and North Star SAR in two days than I have had in the last two years.
Thank you Dr. Bowie and Mr. Michaud for having the courage to use your real names and continue the discussion.
Please feel free to continute this conversation with my private e-mail, dpalman1@gmail.com, or, if you prefer a more public conversation, the next MASAR meeting is June 3 in Bangor, 13:00 hours at the Bangor Warden Headquarters.
Or we may see you at the next search.
Watch out Sardoglady and Cougar 64 are trying to politcize this thing. Wow!!! Read this ad see how easily our tax dollars are spent on these warm and fuzzy programs.
Botttom Line-You want to go in the woods-Be Prepared. It is not rocket science.
No tax dollars are spent on anything associated with the volunteer units.
Deb, Thanks for the good leadership shown even in the setting of this blog. This article as you know was somehow turned into an us vs them rather than a constructive critisim. I have spoken with my board, and Director, and I will arrange to meet with you on how to fix this long term issue with the DEEMI aviation assets and medical assets that are Certified by appropriate state and federal levels, vs the recent requests to have some ground people provided by DEEMI for searches and our subsequent decertification over the ground teams issue. I think the best thing is the get the medical teams in proper use, and maybe medics on each line search, and a medical command post worked well on the last search. On our aviation assets, whether it be our fixed wing high resolution imaging or other aircraft we have, its use has made a difference here and in other states on those lost. Tinker Dam for example. The most important thing is the get these unique assets out there helping and not sitting about based on team politics. The patient must come first, at least we should strive for that.
Doc Bowie