Litter Operations & The International Sportsmen's Exposition

This month's Mountain Rescue training was conducted at Red Rock and the focus was litter operations.  It was the team's first big training session of the year, so it was time to shake out the cobwebs and get back to work.  For the entire day, team members rotated through the numerous stations that it takes to conduct a mission.  Main line, belay line, haul team, edge person, litter attendant, victim, etc.  Volunteers rotated after every evolution, which meant that everyone had their hands on each station at least twice throughout the day.

Days like these are always fun.  It gets the team working together.  Skills are refreshed and so is team comaraderie.

Here's a shot of the entire team at work.  The haul team can be seen on the far left with the main and belay stations located in the middle.  To the right, the litter attendant is working his way over the edge transition with the help of edge people.  Conducting technical rescue missions is no small feat!

Volunteers are securing a mock victim into the litter and attaching both the main and belay lines to the litter.  Before the victim is sent over the edge, a safety officer runs through everything to ensure that everything is attached correctly.

Belay station attendant ready to start the operation.

Members of the Mountain Rescue Unit will be manning a booth at the International Sportsmen's Exposition this Thursday through Sunday.  The Expo is being held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is located at 3150 Paradise Dr.  Come down and say hello!

It's $12 to get into the Expo (free for children and military), however, here's a link to receive $2 off of the ticket price.  Use the promo code BLACKDOG when purchasing tickets here.  

We look forward to seeing you this weekend!

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Not Enough Info!

We do our best to keep this website updated with the latest and greatest at least once a week.  However, sometimes we get really busy and convenience trumps a blog post.

Not to worry - we'll continue to post information here, but we thought that we'd clue everyone in on alternative sources of information.

If you're on twitter, follow us!  If you're on facebook, like us!  We tend to send out small bits of information that not only pertain to our activity, but the Search and Rescue community as a whole.

This information should have you doing a snow dance in no time.  We sure are!

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We Fly at Night

Did you know that we are one of the very few teams that will conduct night-time rescue missions? Not only are our Officers and Volunteers ready to roll 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but so are our Pilots. We're able to support these types of missions because of the countless hours of training and dedication that it takes to make it happen.

In the last couple of weeks, we've responded to a handful of rescue missions that have occurred at night. From a woman falling 30 feet to a pair of climbers with their ropes stuck on a multi-pitch climb, we've been on scene. Most of these rescue missions have occurred while the sun was down.

Although we're trained to respond at night, we encourage everyone to be prepared while they enjoy the outdoors. There are instances where we're unable to respond in the dark for reasons like terrain challenges or bad weather. For that reason, get outside and enjoy this gorgeous weather, but take enough food, water, and clothing to spend the night in the outdoors in a worst case scenario.

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