North Shore Rescue

Swiss Avi Accident

On January 3rd, in Switzerland, 7 people were killed in 3 avalanches, many of them rescuers responding to the first avalanche.

Below are the links to the IKAR website incident report.

Full article

Report in PDF

Labels: avalanche

Code Alpha Table Top Exercise

North Shore Rescue personnel were joined by representatives from various agencies (see below) last night for a table top exercise regarding avalanche response on the North Shore mountains.

BC Parks
Grouse Mountain
Cypress Mountain
RCMP/ISU
CARDA
BC Coroners Service
Canadian Avalanche Center
Coquitlam SAR
Lions Bay SAR
Surrey SAR
Metro Vancouver Parks

Participants were assigned to various scenario groups covering each of the 3 local resort areas and asked to prepare an action plan covering the response to these scenarios. With a lot of cooperation and shared knowledge groups worked together to come up with a realistic response to each of these scenarios. Developing and maintaining a close working relationships with all stakeholders is an important part of emergency response and as such this exercise was a tremendous success.

For background information; Code Alpha refers to an avalanche preplan developed by NSR which sets out the response guidelines/resources/procedures/etc. for a situation where a civilian or a member is caught in an avalanche. This preplan allows for a response to a hectic and complicated situation fraught with emotion and confusion, in a thourough and systematic approach. Ultimately the goal is to protect the safety of the rescuers, while saving as many lives as possible.

Labels: avalanche, Code Alpha, North Shore Rescue, Training

New technology lets NSR members search for avalanche burial victims from the air

NSR members have received the Barryvox VS 2000 Pro External helicopter based avalance transceiver for use in SAR operations. This unit is suspended below the helicopter and allows the technician to locate a burial victim (who is wearing a transceiver) without ever setting foot on the ground. This technology makes our lives safer in hazardous avi terrain, allows for quicker pin pointing, and reduces overall risk.

Recently members trained with this unit in the Seymour river valley along with pilots from Talon Helicopters and their new AS355 TwinStar Helicopter.