Mark Stigar of MatSAR (matsaralaska.org/) and his SAR K9, Lyra, returned to Kodiak to teach their second SAR Academy course, a 4-day, Alaska-focused, search and rescue curriculum. It is a broad and thorough introduction to SAR operations and skills based on ASTM standards (astm.org). Mark brings decades of professional SAR and rotary aircraft experience which adds context and color to the excellent course materials. The K9, Lyra, was a joy to work with and impressed us with her training and excellent nose. The KISAR members in attendance were a mix of new folks and old hands and everyone gained valuable knowledge in all aspects of search theory, management, field deployment, and medical response in both urban and wildland environments.
A huge thanks to Mark and his wife, and Lyra for giving us so much of their time and expertise to make KISAR a more effective organization in emergency response for the Kodiak community.
On September 14, the Alaska State Troopers received a call about a missing member of a party that had traveled to Long Island to camp at the west end of Southern Lake. The subject had left camp headed south and had not returned. Troopers and the USCG Air Station sent thermal drones and an H-60 helicopter to search the south end of the island but were unable to locate the subject. That evening, the Troopers contacted KISAR to assist in the search, and on the morning of Sept 15, KISAR members Josh Boyle, Philip Tschersich, Shae Long, Nicolette Zalewski, Brian Baader, Chris Glade, and Monique Lewis mustered at the small boat harbor in Kodiak and boarded a Trooper skiff for the ride to Long Island.
The members landed at the party’s campsite, dropped gear, and prepared to search predetermined segments. KISAR segmented the search area into 3 zones, and performed line-abreast visual sweep searches for an unresponsive immobile subject through the first area on the south end of the island in the area deemed to have the highest probability of area (POA). Near the end of the sweeps they found a clue that could be positively attributed to the missing subject. A USCG H-60 aircraft arrived on scene and proceeded to search the coastline of the south end of Long Island with multiple passes. They performed an additional search of the clue area but did not find the subject. Having searched the first area with an estimated probability of detection (POD) that made the second search area the next highest POA, KISAR members regrouped at the gear cache and then proceeded to perform additional sweep searches north of Southern Lake.
After numerous sweeps across the island, KISAR planned on returning to the first search area to search it again. Near the end of this effort, KISAR was contacted by the Troopers who had received information that a civilian volunteer searcher in a skiff off the south end of Long Island near Refuge Rock had seen something suspicious on the shoreline at the base of a cliff. KISAR members split up with some proceeding directly to the new clue location while others hiked there via the gear cache to collect the remainder of equipment.
KISAR located the subject near the location given by the civilian volunteer. With calm seas, the Toopers were able to ease their skiff to the beach. They shuttled some KISAR members out to other civilian volunteer skiffs nearby, and then returned to collect the rest of the KISAR team and the remains. All KISAR member were back in the harbor at 1700.
On August 3, a trail runner training for the 24-hour Kodiak “7-Summits Challenge” became lost on the northwest spur of Sheratin Mountain in low clouds. She contacted the State Troopers who requested that KISAR respond to help guide her back to the trail and off the mountain. The Troopers had a location for her, and KISAR members Steve Wielebski, Sharon Wielebski, Chris Glade, Doug Dorner, and Shanna McGrath hiked up the North Side trail from the end of Anton Larsen Bay Road to guide her out.
On April 25, KISAR received a call out request from the Alaska State Troopers to respond to a report of a pair of lost hikers in the Monashka Mountain area at White Sands Beach. We had scant information on their intended route and 2 cell phone tower ‘pings’ placed them in the area of Pelenga Bay near Azimuth Point west of Termination Point. Brief conversations between the hikers and a relative in town provided some ambiguous hints as to their possible locations before the hikers moved out of cell phone range. The KISAR members responding as a hasty team were Philip Tschersich, Shae Long, John Sikes, Meg Disaia, and Ed Eastman. We planned on hiking out to Pelenga Bay to search the forest trails between Termination Point and Azimuth Point based primarily on the cell phone location data. After mustering at White Sands and setting out for Pelenga Bay, the hikers appeared out of the brush from the direction of the Monashka Reservoir Ridge. They had hiked the Monashka Mountain – Monashka Reservoir loop and lost the trail in low clouds, descending through heavy brush to the reservoir shore and then regaining the trail after a strenuous detour.
For our April training, KISAR partnered with the USCG Air Station Kodiak to perform a SAR response to a mock bear mauling incident. The scenario was that an individual had been mauled by a bear on the South End trails of Near Island, rendering the subject immobile and unresponsive. KISAR performed a line-abreast visual sweep search until the subject was located, and then developed a patient assessment, treatment, packaging, and evacuation plan. After moving the patient to the south end of Near Island, KISAR members practiced vectoring the responding USCG helicopter to the scene followed by a series of litter hoists.
KISAR would like to thank the Kodiak Air Station for helping us make this training possible and increase the understanding of the capabilities of the two agencies. We would especially like to thank LT Catherine Cantu, H-60 pilot and KISAR ex officio board member, for helping plan and coordinate the event. The H-60 crew participating in the training were Pilot in Command LT Kyle Jackson, Copilot LCDR Ian Erickson, Flight Mechanic Johnny Vo, and Rescue Swimmer Gabe Davila. KISAR is incredibly grateful for their time and expertise in making the training successful.
Just as we were starting the search portion of the training, Don Zimmerman came down the trail. He was mauled by a bear on Pillar Mountain in 2020, and in this image Philip is pointing across the channel to the location on Pillar.
We used an eggplant as a proxy for a human limb for the wound-cleaning portion of the training. It seemed to work pretty well.
This map shows most of the searchers’ tracks until we located the subject near the tip of the peninsula. The helicopter hoist location is shown near the tip of the island.
The rescue subject with puncture wounds bound and an unstable lower limb injury splinted and ready to be moved.
We used a rescue dummy for the litter hoist training portion.
For KISAR’s March training, we partnered with Casey and Bryan of the Kodiak Survival School to work on bushcraft, emergency shelter building, and signaling. It was an intensive 2.5 day course starting with indoor presentations and practical skill building at Bayside Fire Hall on Friday. On Saturday we drove out to White Sands in Monashka Bay and explored different shelter construction techniques starting with minimalist tarps we had brought and then moving up through more robust improvised structures with better weather resistance and longevity. We practiced fire fuel collection on the landscape and worked on our fire starting. KISAR members spent the night in the structure we had constructed with no additional gear than our clothing and a ground cloth, maintaining a small fire through the night for modest warmth. The next day we build ‘smoke generators’ for rapid visual smoke signaling, and then deconstructed the shelters to minimize our impact on the area before heading back to town.
We had meant to do a December ice safety and rescue training, but with the warm winter we had to wait until January for favorable conditions to develop. KISAR conducted a joint training with Bayside Fire Hall where they focused on the materials and equipment they would use to respond, and KISAR focused on self- and companion-rescue techniques for solo or small groups with minimal gear. Cold water rescue immersion suits, marine ‘survival’ suits, and dry suits were used with PFDs for those going onto the ice. Using the small dock on Lake Gertrude in Ft Abercrombie State Park as a platform, KISAR cut holes in the ice to practice self-extraction with and without ice picks. We also practiced with rescue throw bags including rapid redeployment after a failed throw, using ice screws as a rope-force redirect, and related companion rescue techniques.
For KISAR’s December training, we brought Deb Ajango of Safety Ed to Kodiak to teach a custom wilderness first aid (WFA) refresher course that following a review of major body systems focused on performing medical evaluations for less common injuries and conditions than found in core WFA coursework.
For KISAR’s November general membership training, Philip set a course of clues in Fort Abercrombie State Park between Lake Gertrude and the wildflower meadow. The search area was bounded on the east side by Abercrombie Drive and by trails on the other 3 sides. 40 ‘clues’ were deposited in the search area in the form of squares of orange and green paper with numbers written on them. After a briefing, 7 KISAR members formed a critical separation line-abreast team and methodically swept the search area in 6 passes, recovering 30 of the 40 clues (75%), which was slightly higher than the goal of 65%. The purpose of the training was to become familiar with factors influencing the probability of detection of clues and to practice doing a critical separation sweep search with group situational awareness and good communication.
Kodiak Island Search & Rescue 