Ep. 39 - The Mountaineer Area Rescue Group Conversation with Dan Patterson

Discover the fascinating world of search and rescue missions in our captivating conversation with Dan Patterson, a founding member of the Mountaineer Area Rescue Group. With over 26 years of experience and participation in more than 300 missions, Dan shares invaluable insights into the immense planning, coordination, and dedication required to save lives in the great outdoors. You won't want to miss his incredible stories of both heart-wrenching and heartwarming outcomes.

Learn about the qualifications and backgrounds of the Mountaineer Area Rescue Group volunteers, as well as the latest technology and processes they use to plan and execute these critical missions. From drones and GPS systems to maps and compasses, the group is dedicated to staying ahead of the game in locating and rescuing missing persons. Hear about the challenges they face in the wilderness, and how they're often called upon to assist with logistics and communications in other emergencies.

Finally, explore the rewarding feeling of reuniting a missing person with their family, and take away some valuable tips for hikers to stay safe on the trails. With Dan's expertise in navigating the rugged outdoors, you'll gain a deeper appreciation for the passion and dedication of these search and rescue heroes. Join us for an eye-opening look into the world of wilderness search and rescue, and the incredible volunteers who make it their mission to save lives.

Mountaineer Area Rescue Group Links
MARG Website
EMS Joins Forces with Mountaineer Area Rescue Group (article)
Mountaineer Area Rescue Group in the news (article)
Search and Rescue in the United States

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Music Credit: True Living by Patrick Moore

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Transcript

Helen: 0:10

Every day people following their passions.

Maureen: 0:14

That's probably like one of the highlights of my life so far Just being able to be creative like that, something I've always wanted.

Helen: 0:23

And then I decided to get another hive and that turned into a lot of hives. As long as I can do that, i want to be a good citizen and help people out, putting themselves out there, taking chances and navigating challenges along the way. I absolutely identified with having stage fright, because any time I went on stage I just felt like I was having a hot attack.

Dan Patterson: 0:47

Very first lap, very first practice session. I crashed, Turned the car upside down, made a spectacle of myself And I got back on that horse and started riding again.

Helen: 0:57

As they pursue what makes them happy and brings them joy, as long as people are having a good time and I have the opportunity to put smiles on people's faces.

Maureen: 1:07

I love what I do.

Helen: 1:09

I have done things that I never thought I could do. This is Assorted Conversations, and I'm your host, helen. Hey, welcome if you're listening for the first time and welcome back if you're tuning in again. Thanks for being here. This week's conversation is something Maureen and I got to record a while back and we're just releasing it now.

Helen: 1:38

If you've ever experienced the panic of being lost in the wilderness, like I have, or the fear and the anxiety that comes with somebody being separated from your group, whether you're hiking, taking a walk or camping, we go behind the scenes this week with a founding member of the Mountaineer Area Rescue Group. Dan Patterson has 26 years of experience as a volunteer for this group And he shares stories of some of the search and rescue missions. He's been on the amount of planning that goes into an effective and successful search and rescue mission, and he also shares that his love and his knowledge of the great outdoors has helped him execute over 300 search and rescue missions. I'm telling you after this conversation, there isn't anybody in the world I would trust more than Dan to come find me when I get lost, and it will happen. So take a listen to this week's episode and I'll see you on the other side.

Helen: 2:57

This week's guest has spent the last 26 years as a member of the Mountaineer Area Rescue Group. The group is a volunteer search and rescue organization dedicated to finding and saving lives in the wilderness of Ohio and West Virginia. We are happy to have with us Dan Patterson. Welcome to Assorted Conversations, dan, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Maureen: 3:21

Oh, it's great to have you, dan, with 26 years under your belt, how was it that you got started in doing search and rescue work?

Dan Patterson: 3:31

Well, a couple of years before I got started, there was a search for a young girl in the area And we volunteered a couple of us to go help search and it was very unorganized. The people running the search didn't know what they were doing And, as a result, the young girl passed away And when she was found out later where she was, it really wasn't necessary that that happened And several of us said, hey, you know, we need to get some training here and put together a team. Fortunately, one of the people that was in there knew of a team in the Pittsburgh area and of a conference And they kind of took us under their wing and helped us get started.

Maureen: 4:12

So out of that tragic situation you got involved in creating a group just to do things in a manner that would really benefit anybody who could be in these circumstances.

Dan Patterson: 4:25

That's correct And a lot of people don't realize when you have a search, how involved with planning and figuring out you know where to search. There's no use to waste resources looking in a place that a person isn't going to be. So there's a lot of training to teach you how to set up a search.

Helen: 4:42

Dan, what kind of background or skills did you have that that lent themselves to you starting the group and kind of assessing the situation and discovering that need Well?

Dan Patterson: 4:55

it wasn't just me, there was about five of us and we were all outdoor oriented people. I mean, i'd been all through the Boy Scouts and love the outdoors and hiking and climbing and that sort of stuff, and since the entire group seemed to have a lot of background in the outdoors, we figured that's where we could best be used.

Maureen: 5:15

So what are some of the things that you do as far as planning and developing a strategy for searching for somebody who's outlawed?

Dan Patterson: 5:26

Well, one of the first things we do is we do what's called a lost person questionnaire. It's about seven pages long. We'll have someone sit down with a family member or a friend or whoever saw the person last, and we'll go through and we'll ask them pertinent questions about them. You know, are they outdoor oriented? Do they carry things with them like a flashlight when they go for a hike? What were they wearing? What might have been the reason for them to be out in the woods where they were? Were they hunting, you know, ginseng or other plants? Were they hunting? Were they just hiking?

Dan Patterson: 5:58

And we'll get kind of a background on the person. And then what we'll do is we'll start at what we call the last known point or the last point scene, which might be the person's vehicle that's parked where they stopped to go for a hike Or where somebody actually saw the person. And hopefully from that we can get what we call a direction of travel. Because if we just have a single point, we've got 360 degrees to search from, and if we don't know where they're going from, obviously, if they're traveling at two miles an hour, the area we have to search gets exponentially larger the longer they're gone. So we try to narrow it down to a direction of travel and get just a wedge of that circle to start on to concentrate on.

Maureen: 6:41

How are you notified or what's the process for your team to be called in?

Dan Patterson: 6:47

We can only be called in by what we call an authority having jurisdiction or responsible authority. That would be any law enforcement. It could be in the state of West Virginia, a fire department, a park ranger, that sort of thing And what they do is they contact the 911 center in either Montaguella or Preston County and they will page us out. We have a program on our phones, called I Am Responding, and they will contact whoever is the dispatch person. For that time Dispatch person will get the information about the lost person, where they're at, you know how old the person is, what we're looking for, And then they are able to send out a group page, if you will, over the phone, that gives us the description where we need to go, whether it's you know what the weather forecast is for the next 24 hours, all that sort of information.

Dan Patterson: 7:37

And then we can respond on our phone and say, yes, I'm on my way to the search. I won't be able to be there till you know tomorrow or eight hours if I'm working, because we're all volunteers. And then the dispatch has this on his computer and he can see who's responding to the search and let whoever's running the search know hey, you're going to get some more resources here in a few hours, or this is what we have.

Helen: 7:57

Dan, are there steps to a rescue mission?

Dan Patterson: 8:03

Well, as far as rescue goes, I guess that kind of depends on what the rescue is If we've already found or, i'm sorry, maybe I should have said search and rescue.

Helen: 8:14

Well, yeah, there's definitely. You got to find them first.

Dan Patterson: 8:17

There's definitely steps to the search And unfortunately it seems like hurry up and wait a lot of times because everybody shows up and they're ready and anxious to go out in the woods But we don't yet have areas to search.

Dan Patterson: 8:29

You know, we don't want to just send people running through the woods, we want to use our resources wisely because we don't always have that many people. So the people in planning will take all the information they have and they will look at the topographical maps of the area and they will segment what they consider high priority or high probability areas based on, you know, do we know? this person walks slow, they walk fast. How old are they? What were they doing? Are they, you know, walking down a particular trail and will segment it into about 40 acres. And then we will assign teams with a field team leader and they're able to go out to those areas and search them, keep in touch with us radio and let us know if they found anything or if they haven't or, you know, whatever their status is out there, and we'll systematically check what we call the high probability areas and work our way out.

Maureen: 9:26

So what would you say, Dan, is some of the keys to a successful search? What are the things that are most important for the search to be successful?

Dan Patterson: 9:38

Well, one of the big things that we have a problem with is keeping the last known point pristine. People always want to run up to the person's car and look inside and they walk around it. We've had fire departments in years past that would come right to the spot and park their trucks there and keep it running. So now we've got all the diesel fumes in the area so dogs can't pick up any scent, and people that have gone there and handled the vehicle and walked around it. They put so many tracks. it makes it difficult for our sign cutters and man trackers to find a direction of travel. So I'd say the very first step is trying to keep that area pristine.

Maureen: 10:18

You don't think about that when you're just finding or looking for somebody and you're anxious about them. So that's important information for people to have. Do people have to have certain qualifications to be part of a search team?

Dan Patterson: 10:33

Well, our team is all volunteers and we've grown to about 50 people at this point in time, probably 30 of which are really active, but they come from all walks of life. I mean, we have people that are outdoors people. We have people that are business people. There are several people in the medical field. We have students from the local university. Anybody with any desire to actually help out has a position. They may not even be able to be out in the field, but if they can program GPS's or work on the computer programs that we use, that sort of thing, you know we've got a place for everybody.

Maureen: 11:07

And you had mentioned that you do training with people, correct?

Dan Patterson: 11:10

I'm currently the training officer and we bring people in. A lot of people have no clue whatsoever about the outdoors, but they want to help. So when we first bring them in, there's several things they need to do. They have to understand our bylaws and what we do, and you know. They get a course on what we can do legally and what we can't, and you know different things they have to watch out for in the woods. We want to make sure that they're not a danger to themselves or someone else. So they get some basic training there.

Dan Patterson: 11:39

There's a couple of courses that FEMA puts out on the National Incident Management System, or NIMS, that we require them to take online because that's the way all incidents work anymore And they need to understand the difference between, you know, incident command or planning or operations and logistics that sort of thing.

Helen: 11:57

Dan, could you explain a little bit more about that incident command system, like what's the hierarchy and the organization of it And why it's so important?

Dan Patterson: 12:10

It's imagine a flowchart with your incident commander at the very top, and then it branches down to several other areas where you might have a couple of small branches off of the incident commander, like maybe a deputy commander or family liaison or public information officer, and then it drops down into planning, where you're planning how you're going to run the operation. You have operations. That actually puts the plans into use. You have logistics, and logistics provides the material, people and everything else for operations to do. There's also a finance section, but since we're all volunteers, we never have finance section for any of ours.

Maureen: 12:52

You never see those people, huh?

Dan Patterson: 12:54

No, we never get that Years ago people out west would be calling for a tanker in a wildfire And what they were talking about was an airline tanker, and people in the east who didn't have those kinds of fires thought it meant a tanker truck. So there was a lot of mess up between these larger incidents where people were misconstruing what was requested or asked of them and everything else. So it started off with the wildland fires with the NIMS system, and it was developed to handle all of the emergencies and operations across the United States to use that particular system. So there would be continuity.

Maureen: 13:32

A standardization of it all.

Dan Patterson: 13:34

Yeah, i was going to say the nice thing about it is you can start off small, if you only have a few people there, and you can expand it as the search grows, and then you can contract it again. I mean, the system is very flexible.

Helen: 13:45

Yeah, i work for a utility company and when we have a big storm, we use the exact same system, and it's so. We're all speaking the same language and there are dedicated groups to specific tasks. Yet all of our efforts are working toward the same end goal, right? We just all have a different role Yep.

Dan Patterson: 14:10

So we want the new people to understand how that system works, and then we require them to have a call-out pack which contains certain essential items that they'll need for being out. We are self-sustaining for 48 hours with our packs, so they need to have flashlight, headlamp, a pocket knife, some sort of shelter, food. We require them to have medical gloves and also leather gloves if they're doing a rescue eventually with rope work Just the certain essentials that a person would need in order to be self-sufficient out in the woods for 48 hours.

Maureen: 14:45

It occurs to me that over 26 years, the types of technology and the processes you've used have changed considerably over the time period. No idea.

Dan Patterson: 14:56

I'll give you an example. When we first started, all we had was regular Topo maps and when we draw the segments on it we would lay a sheet of acetate over top of it and tape it down. So we could write on the acetate where the areas were. And then somebody had to transfer that to a copy of the map for the team to take out and transfer the segment onto that. And if a search was going on overnight, somebody had to stay up all night long and be planning for the next morning. So we had it to go.

Dan Patterson: 15:27

Well, we had a search here a couple months ago and we were in the middle of a national forest, middle of nowhere, and we were in our truck. We have computer systems in there that automatically print out the segments that we tell it to, and it prints out our task assignment forms. It gives all the information to the team leaders that they need. And when it came to planning that night it was about two o'clock when we stopped. Normally somebody would be staying up all night doing the planning, but we now have what's called remote planning. We had a hotspot and there were six other people online on a meeting not like this, where I think one guy was in Missouri, one was in Virginia. I know one guy was in Hawaii. I don't know if they were all you know search team members.

Dan Patterson: 16:10

We gave them what we needed. We went to sleep, they stayed up, they did the planning, they set it back to our computer. When we came in the next morning we had our assignments ready to go. So, yes, it's changed a lot.

Maureen: 16:23

Oh, my God, that's amazing, okay, as a person who still remembers what paper maps look like and use them back in my childhood. okay, dan, it is fascinating to me that not only are you using the technology, but you're using people in other time zones, who aren't even familiar with the area, to just go ahead and map everything out for you.

Dan Patterson: 16:47

And we do use technology like GPS and some of the systems on our telephones and we can actually see the people on the map in real time where the teams are. But my team kind of gets upset with me because I still make them learn how to do it with just a map and compass, because sometimes technology fails.

Maureen: 17:04

I think that's great, because I'm forever in a place where you go. I have no signal.

Dan Patterson: 17:09

Well then, that happens with GPS's, but maps and compasses don't fail.

Maureen: 17:14

Right, Right. But you know what the Boy Scouts have done you good.

Dan Patterson: 17:18

Yeah.

Helen: 17:21

Dan, are you, is the group using drone technology at all? Yes, we are.

Dan Patterson: 17:28

We just started. A couple of years ago They had a problem where they were calling us a commercial venue and said we couldn't use the drones because it was a commercial venue without having licensed pilots. I suppose the people that are doing it for recreation which we kind of argued because we weren't getting any money or anything out of it, we were using it to save lives But now we have three different licensed drone pilots and we do use the drones. Sometimes It's a little bit difficult in our very wooded area to see down through the canopy, but if there's a marshy or swampy area that would be ridiculous for a person to try to wade through, we can hover over that and search for the drones.

Maureen: 18:10

How often do you have a call for a search and or a rescue?

Dan Patterson: 18:16

Two or three times a month, i would say on average no-transcript. Although we do wilderness search, we do some in West Virginia when I call it a suburban area it's half houses and half, you know, woodlands, so we do that. We have occasionally had searches in urban areas not very often. The authorities will call us a lot of times to help out with logistics and communications on other emergencies. We had a blizzard come through a few years ago. There was no power and we went and helped move people from a nursing home to a heated fire hall, that sort of thing. So we're willing to help out wherever we're needed.

Helen: 18:57

Oh, that's great.

Maureen: 19:00

Wow.

Helen: 19:02

Dan, in your tenure with the group, how many search and rescue missions do you think you've been involved with?

Dan Patterson: 19:14

I've been on close to 300. The group's been close to five. You can't go Wow. Everybody's able to go to every search, for whatever reason. We're all volunteers, So that's why we like to have a large group. We can usually field a few people. You know it's a work day and somebody's not working, they can go.

Helen: 19:30

Tell me about an experience, a search and rescue mission that kind of sticks out to you, that you are involved with.

Dan Patterson: 19:40

That's an easy one. I've got one that still haunts me.

Dan Patterson: 19:44

We had a search for a gentleman in the county that I live in and we went there and, after going through all of our questions and everything else, this gentleman had been to the doctor and found out he had some tumors And he had told his family after watching his brother die of agony and cancer and said if I ever get cancer he says I'm leaving, you'll never find me. Well, he disappeared. We were there to hunt for him. We knew he didn't get a ride anywhere and he couldn't walk that far because the gentleman had poor leg issues. And on the third day of the search the wife came out of the house crying, said the doctor called and said the issue was benign.

Dan Patterson: 20:31

No, and to my knowledge, the man has never been found, and that's been about seven years ago.

Helen: 20:38

Oh, wow.

Maureen: 20:40

Oh, that's heartbreaking.

Dan Patterson: 20:42

Yeah, that really haunts me.

Helen: 20:46

It will haunt me from now on. Wow, how about another search and rescue that had a happier ending?

Dan Patterson: 20:56

There's been quite a few of those, quite a few. One that was kind of interesting happened just last month. We had a gentleman that was lost to the local state forest and we had just finished the search the night before. So I was going to take the second shift And as I was driving in in the morning I still didn't know any of the information about who we were looking for. But I'm about I don't know 100 yards from the base and this man pops up out of the woods under the road and is walking and I thought that doesn't look right. So as I pulled into the base, the Ranger was there and I said I don't know who we're looking for, but there's a gentleman walking down the road that just didn't look like he should be there. But you go down a check and sure enough, it was the guy we were looking for.

Maureen: 21:38

Oh, wow, he had just wandered like out to the road. He'd found the road.

Dan Patterson: 21:44

Yeah, and, like I said, i didn't know who I was looking for, but this guy just seemed out of place, so I thought it was best to follow up on it.

Helen: 21:52

Oh, that's great. So he definitely upsides with the happy endings. And then there's there's kind of the difficult part of this. How do you face those challenges, or process that and continue to do what you do?

Dan Patterson: 22:09

I would say over the years we have probably a little bit better than a third of the cases. we find that people alive, maybe injured but survivable. About a third of them we find where they've been deceased, and maybe a little bit less than a third we never find for one reason or another, and the ones that we never find are kind of hard to take. But the other two at least we've provided closure for the family one way or the other. So I kind of look at that being a plus. Even if the person's deceased, the family doesn't need to worry.

Maureen: 22:42

It's such a gift to know what's happened to a person, as opposed to not knowing.

Dan Patterson: 22:49

Two days ago we had a search and it was a rather high profile search. The reason I know that is my daughter in California heard about it, but a gentleman who was a former pro rugby player in the UK had moved to the US And he had developed several emotional problems, physical problems. He was in a wreck, lost his vehicle and he disappeared probably around the 7th or the 13th we're not sure of January and nobody had found him. So the family flew in from the UK and we had time to put this search together. We had search teams from five different states. We had 16 HRD or human remains dogs and we searched. Since we didn't have a direction of travel, we only had that complete 360 degree circle And we searched. Probably I think it was 32 separate missions that we sent out and still haven't found it And I feel really bad for the family because they still have no closure. But I know that we did a very good job trying to help them out.

Helen: 24:00

What do you think happens to the folks that you just can't find?

Dan Patterson: 24:06

Some of them don't want to be found. I know that. And others, one gentleman we were looking for in the forest I was talking about the planning. He was there illegally hunting ginseng. So we don't know really what direction he took and that makes it very difficult to find. I don't know. That's the mystery of the whole thing.

Maureen: 24:31

Illegally hunting ginseng. Ginseng is an illegal thing to hunt.

Dan Patterson: 24:35

No, it was illegal to hunt on a national forest.

Maureen: 24:39

Oh.

Dan Patterson: 24:39

Yeah.

Helen: 24:40

You got Maureen Nersafe.

Maureen: 24:42

I'm thinking like ginseng. I'm like, oh my gosh, i'm like a forager, i'm in trouble now.

Dan Patterson: 24:46

No, just illegal in the national forest Illegal to remove any plants.

Helen: 24:52

To avoid that whole search and rescue situation? does Mark work with the community to help folks, hikers, anybody that's out enjoying the nature to stay safe when they do that?

Dan Patterson: 25:10

We do. We have some programs that are designed mostly towards children. There was a program called Hugga Tree and one is called Lost Foot, found Safe and Sound. We teach kids what to do if they get lost. Don't crawl into a hole where we can't find you. Make yourself big, stay in one place so we can find you, because trying to hit a moving target is ridiculous. Right, we actually give out whistles to the kids to carry with them, because a whistle lasts a lot longer than their voice. We teach them about using plastic bags or shelter, that sort of thing. We really don't have any programs designed for adults, but we do for the children. A few years ago, we had one lady who really wasn't able to go out in the field, so she took it upon herself to go to all the schools and civic groups and everything else And I think she showed the program to probably something ridiculous like 1200 kids in the surrounding countries. Wow Yeah.

Maureen: 26:08

That's awesome.

Helen: 26:09

Yeah, yeah, what. What advice do you have for adults or for hikers when They're out in the woods to to avoid getting lost And staying safe?

Dan Patterson: 26:24

It's. It's quite easy to get lost. Anybody that says they haven't been lost hasn't spent any time in the woods Included. But the big things are let somebody know where you're going and when you plan to be back. And Take the bare essentials with you. You know the proper clothing. We've had people we found out hiking in the middle of nowhere and flipped lofts. You know It's the good shoes, proper clothing, and take things with you like a flashlight. It's excellent if you know mapping compass, but take some food and the the things that you need in case you had to spend the night out there to be comfortable and safe. A Lot of people just take off with a bottle of water in their hand And that's it right.

Maureen: 27:05

Yeah they don't expect the turned ankle or the slip on the ice or whatever.

Dan Patterson: 27:10

That's right.

Helen: 27:12

What about protection from animals? you know in in Ohio and West Virginia wilderness, What, what sort of animals might an explorer Encounter you?

Dan Patterson: 27:25

know they're really. You're more likely to get in trouble with another person out in the woods And you are with an animal. Okay, i don't. We've had occasional people get bit by snakes and usually they were Antagonizing the snake. You've never had anybody Attacked by a bear that I can remember, or coyotes or anything else. One of the biggest animals I need to figure out there is a bee, if they have, you know, allergies to it.

Dan Patterson: 27:51

So you know, we have people on our teams that are allergic to bees, and I know for one fact This one lady carries her upper pen and her right cargo pocket. So you know, let somebody know if you got a problem.

Maureen: 28:04

It's always the little ones, those little guys, the bees.

Dan Patterson: 28:07

That's. That's probably more more danger out there than any other animal.

Helen: 28:12

Yeah, this, the snakes would kill me. I wouldn't be teasing it, i would be running from it. What kind of challenges do do you face during a search and a rescue mission?

Dan Patterson: 28:26

Well, we live in a pretty rugged area. at least a lot of our searches are in rugged areas. So terrain is a hazard Lots of cliffs, high walls, rock crevices, slippery moss, slippery footing. weather is a problem, you know, we've been out in 100 degrees, we've been out in below zebra weather, so that's another problem that we face as far as hazards And things like you know, heat stroke and hypothermia that go with it.

Maureen: 28:56

Mm-hmm. Yeah, you being prepared and not becoming another casualty is Significant. Like you have to do a lot to keep that from happening and I I would imagine that needing to call back and pull people back from a search is Difficult because you feel like you're leaving a person, you're kind of abandoning a person out there if they're Expected to be found alive our field team leaders have pretty extensive Training on keeping an eye on their their teams, because they may have trained searchers, they may have emergent volunteers.

Dan Patterson: 29:30

You know, if volunteers show up and they're not dressed accordingly, we don't let them go out, because if one of them gets hurt We've lost the entire resource of a team because we don't send anybody out alone or anything like that. So we've lost a lot of resource if somebody gets hurt on the team. So everybody's trained very well on on how to keep an eye out for the other guy.

Maureen: 29:49

So you go out, you go out in tandem.

Dan Patterson: 29:51

You always buddy up, it's well, actually, if we have a 40 acre task, we usually have a field team leader and about four or five people, and they will depending on how thick the brush is, they will spread out. We usually like to say no further apart from each other, that you can still see the other person's shoes. That way, if there's something between you, a clue of some sort, or even a person, you'll be able to pick up on it. So it's usually a team of five to seven people.

Dan Patterson: 30:22

It's surprising how much Underbrush there is and how easily someone can be hidden now, when we say that a dog team, it might just be the dog handler. The dog in a flanker dog does his job very well. The dog handlers job is to pay attention to the dog because there are certain alerts that they need to be aware of, and then the flankers, responsible for Communication with the base and navigating to make sure they get to the right place and back.

Maureen: 30:49

It is very complex, very involved.

Helen: 30:53

Yeah, you have to be strategic to use those resources in the right way.

Dan Patterson: 31:00

That is true. And as far as deploying them too, if we are working with an air sent dog, we want to make sure that there isn't a team in the section next to them that would throw the air sent dog off too. So we are aware of air currents and things that affect sent, and whenever the planning people are doing it, they have to make sure that they stagger those tasks so that one doesn't interfere with the other.

Maureen: 31:26

What is it that you feel is the most rewarding piece of doing this type of work for you? I?

Dan Patterson: 31:32

think seeing the faces of the family when we have a successful search, that's enough.

Dan Patterson: 31:36

Our team is not the only team. We are part of the Appalachian Search and Rescue Conference and there are seven teams in the conference, anywhere from Ohio, there's Pennsylvania, maryland, virginia, a couple in Pennsylvania I guess And we all train to the same standards so that when we have a large search, like we had last Saturday, and we call in help from other teams, when I see what badge is on the person's shoulder as to what they've accomplished so far as a search manager, i know what they can do And I can send them out to lead a team or be part of a man tracking team or whatever. So it's nice to have that in reserve whenever you have a large search.

Maureen: 32:16

Now are you along the Appalachian Trail.

Dan Patterson: 32:18

No, no, the Appalachian Trail runs through Harpers Ferry of West Virginia and that's the only place, and that's near the Eastern Panhandle.

Maureen: 32:27

Only because I was wondering that people go on long hikes for weeks, if not months, on end. If they have an itinerary. What's your recommendation for what they do with their itinerary so that people know where they are and can have kind of checkpoints?

Dan Patterson: 32:45

Well, years ago, people used to leave their itineraries on the dashboard of their car, But that made it easy for people to say, hey, they're going to be back to this car for three more days, and they break into it.

Dan Patterson: 32:56

So, one of the best things you could do is leave a phone number on the dash of your car for a friend back home that has your itinerary. That way, if they come across your car and they wonder about if the authorities can call that number and if you're the friend, you can tell them to say, well, he's supposed to be here by now and he's planning on making it to this point by Wednesday or whatever. So that's probably the best thing you could do is make sure somebody is back there with you.

Helen: 33:20

If you get lost. What are some best practices to make? God forbid, a search or rescue team need to be called out for you. What are the best practices you should do if you're lost in the woods?

Dan Patterson: 33:34

First thing you need to do is stop if you're not in danger. If you think you're going to be there for a while, find some sort of shelter. take stock of what you have with you and what you might need to use. It's always good to have some wilderness skills, like being able to build a fire or whatever, but the big thing is get yourself in a safe position and stay put because, as you wonder, you'll get excited, you'll get tired, you may fall and hurt yourself. Like I said, a moving target is very hard to hit, so make yourself as visible as you can. We'll find you if you're visible. and stay in and put in one spot.

Maureen: 34:19

I imagine that's hard. If I'm lost in the woods, your inclination is to keep moving because your panic is like I'm lost. I'm trying to find something that is recognizable to me. So staying put is the key to helping people find you more easily, definitely is.

Dan Patterson: 34:40

You're able to walk around every once in a while to try to figure out what's going on, but you have to pay attention. Is it going to get dark soon? Am I in a dangerous area? What's the weather going to be? There's nothing wrong with trying to find your way out for a little while, but at some point in time you have to realize that, hey, i might be here overnight. I better stop now and get some shelter or build a fire or whatever I can do to stay comfortable.

Maureen: 35:05

Just stay put, maureen, stop moving around.

Helen: 35:09

My first instinct would be go get help or try and find the road.

Dan Patterson: 35:15

Well, that's where it comes in handy to have a little bit of navigational skills to be able to read a map.

Maureen: 35:20

Well, that and I'm all about going out and buying a whistle. Now I will be the elementary school child.

Dan Patterson: 35:27

I will We all carry whistles on our backs because a whistle will carry for a long way and you can blow that whistle for a long time, long after your voice wears out from hollering.

Maureen: 35:38

Well, now it occurs to me like if I ever hear a whistle out in the woods, I would be aware of somebody calling for help.

Helen: 35:45

Right And that it's not a traffic cop.

Maureen: 35:50

Or a coach.

Helen: 35:53

Help and give me 20. Dan, as a founding member of the group, what are the next steps or what direction would you like to see the group go in or expand in?

Dan Patterson: 36:09

To be honest with you, i've got to the point now where I'm kind of stepping back. I feel like a proud papa seeing it grow. I'm trying to let it go, let other people take over and go with the direction, that I'm not so much directing the way the group goes anymore, i'm just kind of letting it grow on its own And it's doing a fine job. It's doing a real good job. We've got a lot of newer members that are definitely devoted to it and they're all coming up with ideas And to me, just sitting back and watching it grow on its own is fantastic.

Maureen: 36:47

I'm in awe and I feel a lot better about anybody who might have the need that there are these types of people volunteering their time like you, Dan, and caring enough about their community to be at the ready.

Helen: 37:02

I feel a little more confident to go for a stroll in the woods down in Dan's neck.

Maureen: 37:09

Right, right. My dog is not trained to find you here, helen.

Helen: 37:18

Dan, thank you so much for all of the time, for all of the information you shared with us and for starting this wonderful group so many years ago.

Dan Patterson: 37:31

I had a hand in it. I wasn't the only one.

Helen: 37:34

Well, true, true. But again, the idea came from that initial group and I am so happy for what you've built and so thankful that there are folks like you and all of the volunteers involved, with Marg, out there searching and preparing to rescue and bring folks home to their families. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your time, dan. This is great. Okay, wow, what a legacy Dan has been a part of building, as he's helped so many families reunite or bring closure to them. Who to thought? from Eagle Scout to mountain area rescue group.

Helen: 38:19

If you'd like to learn more about the rescue group, jump down to the show notes for links to their page, maybe even investigate how you can get involved in a local rescue group near you. If you're enjoying the content, please help me grow the podcast, and you can do it in three simple ways. You can leave a five star written review wherever you download your podcasts, and written reviews help the podcast get into the algorithms and pop up in the recommended for you section so others can discover the podcast. Another way you can help the podcast is to tell a friend about us, share your favorite episode, share an episode you think they may be interested in And, lastly, you can support the pod on buy me a coffeecom.

Helen: 39:12

I literally run on pumpkins. So just three small ways to help the podcast and ensure your support and love. And don't forget to connect with me on social media Facebook, twitter, instagram or you can even drop me a note, say hello, ask a question, submit an idea for a future episode at a convose pod at gmailcom. You can jump down to the show notes for all of my social media links and my email address, and I can't thank you enough for listening. I'll see you in two weeks.