From the category archives:

Stryder

Delaware River Recovery Effort

by Rita Argiros

Wednesday, August 26th 2009 we responded to Knight’s Eddy, NY to help locate drowning victim HIN HON SIU, age 36, of Jamaica, New York.  He had drowned on Sunday, August 23rd. He had been rafting with three friends near the Staircase Rapids when his raft overturned and he did not resurface.  Rain has swollen the river on the 23rd making the rapids more dangerous than usual and hampering rescue efforts  for the next two days.  U.S. Parks Department Officers called me late Tuesday morning and we made arrangements for the next day.

Wednesday was the first day that the river was calm enough to search effectively with divers. The dogs were tasked to search just below the point last seen. If  they could pinpoint an area, they could reduce the amount of river bottom that divers needed to search.  Three teams from Eagle Valley were deployed: Findling and Stryder, Pardini and Suki, Warren and Quax. A fourth team was deployed from Ramapo Search and Rescue Dogs.  All four teams completed their assignments and reported the dogs were alerting in a single area just below the point last seen (PLS).  Divers were sent to search that area.

Meanwhile, I put together a second round of assignments. The trickiest part of searching the river is getting the dogs and boats to the places that need to be searched.  I enlisted the help of a Pennsylvania  Environmental Conservation Officer whose name I can’t remember who has lived his entire life in the area and knew every road, trail and boat landing.

Local Guide and EVDOGS Handler Liz Dalton

Local Guide and EVDOGS Handler Liz Dalton

Amir Findling came prepared with a complete set of maps for the river from the point where the boat capsized down to Port Jervis.  We both thought it likely that the body had already resurfaced and traveled beyond where the main search effort was focused.  After sinking to the bottom for a period of time, drowning victims resurface.  When they resurface depends upon several factors including the water temperature.  The warmer the water, the sooner the victim surfaces. We were looking at a three day interval in August.  If the body hadn’t become stuck, wedged in between rocks or debris, it very likely had already surfaced.

We planned to search at least 6 miles from the point last seen. This was both our experience with fast moving water, and was also indicated in Bob Koester’s Lost Person Behavior. 95% of drowning victims on rivers were located within 8 miles of the pls.  If I had had more dogs, I would have extended the search area out the full 8 miles. We had three other dogs teams that hadn’t been deployed yet, me and Ripley, Katie Danzig and Scout, and Dick Szczesh and K-9 Buddy from Amigo Search and Rescue Dogs.  The three teams that had been out in the morning were also ready for a second assignment.  The plan was to search high probability areas–places where a floating body might get stuck on shore or in strainers along the river bank.

Amir came prepared with arial photos of the river

Amir came prepared with arial photos of the river

Just as we were getting ready to deploy the second round, a kayaking found him washed up on shore.  He was found where we planned to deploy one of our teams–5.6 mile from the PLS, near an access point my guide had identified.  I was glad the victim had been found. Diving is always dangerous.  Having recently completed a course in lost person behavior, I was also gratified that we’d come up with a good plan.

Delaware River from PLS to where subject was found

Delaware River from PLS to where subject was found

What about the dogs who alerted earlier near the point last seen?  Divers recovered a shoe positively identified as belonging to the victim exactly where the Ramapo dog indicated.  Most likely the dogs were alerting on the shoe and possibly other items belonging to the subject.  It is also likely they were alerting on the residual scent left by victim who had been in that spot for at least a day, probably two.  Its likely he was under the water Monday and most of Tuesday.  Once he had surfaced the journey downstream would not have taken long.   His final location was out in the open, clearly visible to any river traffic.  I had been on the shore since early that morning. There was no recreational traffic early in the morning.  The first rafters started passing our location at Knights Eddy just an hour or so before he was located. The victim was probably seen by the very first kyacker that went past him that day.

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Water training becomes camp search training

by afindling

With the weather not cooperating, our plans for water training had to be changed, so we used the camp as our training grounds. It was a large camp, with multiple buildings and structures, from workshops to theaters, studios, dance studios and place to practice perhaps every art and craft on earth. Some buildings had open doors, some not. There were no occupants, just a few maintenance people and a few visitors. That was very close to the state we sometimes get on a real search, so it was an excellent setup for training.

In such a man-made environment, our job as handlers is to put our dogs where they can start hitting on the fringes of scent. This allows us to read the dogs for the longest time and go from there to areas that have more and more scent, depending on wind direction, topography, sun etc.

I made a decision to cut my area in half, doing the top part last. No real particular reason, but a cut had to be made and I had a road that made it easy to cut it that way.

I did not search with the wind in my shoulder, as this would have made me go up and down a steep hill. I had better roads following the contour lines and I expected to have some channeling of scent there.

I generally remain on a hasty pattern till I see that it is not effective, or till my dog enters scent (in this environment, it may not be cone-shaped). As it so happened, I passed right through the open part of the building where my subject was hidden (this was a blind problem for me) and Stryder on the hasty pattern did not show interest. I then decided to clear another building, an arena of sorts with a few sheds by it. Stryder started showing natural alerts in a side facing the  building we had just searched hastily. That told me to go and now do that building more methodically. First door that opened Stryder bounced in and started giving me a frustration bark, as he had scent but no subject there. I worked all five other rooms, to find the subject in the last one. That was a new structures and those studios had doors with real good weather stripping, so little scent got out the bottom. The only hole was the one for the lock, which was not yet installed. So whatever scent came out, as result of the wind blowing out there and creating a low pressure area outside the door, sucking scent from the inside, was coming out at about 32″ above the ground. No wonder my dog did not get it when his nose passed at maybe 24″ and probably further down if he tried to check the door sill on the hasty pattern.

I have no explanation why Stryder indicated on scent in the first room. Maybe I should have tried with my little cherry sized smoke gizmos. I ought to take them along as I did in the past. They do come in handy to explain what scent is doing very locally and are not a fire hazard either, as they are so small and easy to extinguish.

Should Stryder have alerted on the very door where the subject was ? Ideally yes. But we are a team. Stryder gave me some natural alerts down wind, so I knew to take him into the wind, to the buildings that were in the right angle. Once there, getting a frustration bark indicated to me that we are getting close and it is time for a fine pattern search, knowing the subject is close. By the time I opened the last door, Stry bolted in and I knew we had made the find. Did he actually give me an indication on that door just before I opened it? I don’t remember, maybe the observers saw it?

Now Rita apologized for not having realised how tight that door was. No apology was necessary. Once you are certified, the only way to keep up is to be challenged. It keeps you honest and on your toes. No problem should be a gimme, unless so requested.

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