Northway Rescue Helmet-cam

From this thread: www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboardi....msg112108#msg112108

Video by freightrainer.

I had a helmet cam on for the ski down through gate 4 and pretty much forgot that it was on for the "whomp" and the search. It took just over 10 minutes to find her from the time she was buried in the slide:

The probing was pretty random and I agree with Joe that an organized probe line would have been the right thing to do. Every group needs one really bossy type to organize the effort!
We were also just a group of people who skied through the gate at the same time and there were many skiers without partners so it was impossible to do a head count.

Thanks for reposting this Charlie.  I totally missed this thread.  It would be nice if the video was under general discussion.   I just watched the other video a couple of days ago, where the party only had two beacons(echo peak).   They are both very eye opening about the abilities of your rescuer.  I was cringing as the crystal rescuer looked at his beacon but did not move.  It probably would not have mattered since the main issue was background beacon noise and the girl was found by probing.  However if you have a reading, usually the best thing is to MOVE.  Yes stop pick up the best signal, but then move in what you think is the right direction.    BEACONS SUCK.   Did I say that loud enough.  They are only as good as the user.  In the perfect world they lead you right to the victim.  In the imperfect world you go the wrong way on the flux line, or it's a deep burial, or multiple burials.   BEACONS SUCK.   I think a lot of novices assume they would work well.  I mean look at what an iphone can do.  The beacon is only as good as the user, and he must practice if he is to be proficient at all!  I am just as guilty as the next skier.   Everyone wants to go tour.  Nobody wants to practice.    Last year my brother practiced with his new beacon and was blown away with how messed up it can be.  My prime touring partner - LAME.   I will give myself a mediocre grade.    These videos really illustrate the need to practice!!!   I have an Avy 2 certificate.  I have a week long Candian course under my belt.  I am still marginal.  I need to practice.  I know a lot of Crystal buddies that have gotten beacons, "to be safe."    I think most of them could switch to search, but I am not counting on any proficiency.  If you buy a Skilsaw, does that make you a carpenter?

Okay- no bites.  I am stuck home with the flu, so I will keep babbling.  I realize this is basically a duplicate thread, but the other one did not seem to get that much attention.

Freightliner seemed to do a great job.  Things he did right:
1.  Immediately yelled when he saw the avy pull out
2.  Yelled "watch her"
3. kept his eye on her, and went to the last seen location
4.  Very quickly has his beacon out and in search mode
5.  Clearly communicated with patrol
6.  Had a probe and started using it, when it became apparent that the beacon  was not helping.

Things that could be done better or observations.
1.  Not much coordination
2.  Probing - how about if the skiers had shucked their baskets to probe better with their poles.
3.  Other - extra people should be getting out probes and shovels, and giving them to people in the mix
4.  The snowboarders definitely were at a disadvantage as far as mobility.

This really looked like a huge cluster, but thanks to everyone  it had a positive outcome.

I am just throwing out some ideas, would love to see more comments

Good observations Khyak - especially about the things that weren't done well. I have been churning on this a lot since it happened.
I did hesitate to post the video because of course it makes me look pretty inept but I decided that the video does have some value as a wake-up call to those of us (most of us?) who carry beacons but never use them.
Practicing with your beacon is completely different than using it with the clock ticking and the adrenaline pumping and with maybe 20+ other skiers with beacons standing nearby whose beacons are probably interfering with your search.
Someone does need to take charge - even if nobody in the search group is a clearly the experienced leader type.
There was very little communication between the skiers in this search. I think this might have been because it looked like such an insignificant slide and there was an assumption ( I think) that we would just ski in, locate the buried skier(s) very quickly and then head up for another powder run.
The search group needs to agree on who they are searching for, how many they are searching for, where they were last seen and if they were wearing beacons.
Last season I took my beacon out pretty much to just change the batteries a couple of times. I have now started doing a beacon check before every side country/ back country ski.
In the Tunnel Creek article, one of the searchers said that there beacon was getting bad readings but that one of the other skiers had a different brand of beacon that was getting good readings. I would like to know which beacons these were.
I think the only way to do a meaningful beacon practice search is to do it with 20-30 people watching - with their beacons on transmit of course.
You can't practice enough for something like this.

I did hesitate to post the video because of course it makes me look pretty inept but I decided that the video does have some value as a wake-up call to those of us (most of us?) who carry beacons but never  use them.

Thank you so much for posting the video. Posting it was a courageous act. The video is also very valuable for the community. FWIW, you performed better than I would have in a very stressful situation. If something like that happens to me someday, I hope there are folks like you and the others in your video around to save my ass.

Someone does need to take charge - even if nobody in the search group is a clearly the experienced leader type.
There was very little communication between the skiers in this search. I think this might have been because it looked like such an insignificant slide and there was an assumption ( I think) that we would just ski in, locate the buried skier(s) very quickly and then head up for another powder run.
The search group needs to agree on who they are searching for, how many they are searching for, where they were last seen and if they were wearing beacons.

You can't practice enough for something like this.

This incident is very different from the scenarios that I typically think through and discuss with my partners in that the responders weren't from one or a few parties traveling together in the backcountry. This fact hugely complicates the situation. These questions should be easy to answer for people following good travel protocol in remote settings:
How many are unaccounted for?
Are the victims wearing transceivers in transmit mode?
What rescue gear is available?
In your case they were very difficult to answer. I'm not sure you can practice for every conceivable eventuality, and, in unusual circumstances, the victims will always be dependent on level-headed good Samaritans like yourself adapting whatever knowledge they have to the problem at hand.

Also, I totally agree that it is self-defeating to carry a transceiver around if you do not drill with it. Having said that, I will also admit that I do not drill much with my transceiver.

Freightrainer:

I own your beacon and used it for years...it's now just an extra. There's one part where the guy in the red jacket uses it to search for a signal, but he's rotating it to get something on the directional arrows. I can tell you from experience the directional arrows on that unit are worthless. The distance meter is the only part that is accurate.

The BCA Tracker v.1 was an early digital unit and does not have quite as good of range or as many antennas as more current units. If you have fresh batteries (watch for acid corrosion in this unit too, mine suffered) it is decent though and would pick up anything in the field of this avalanche. If you use the Tracker like an analog beacon, it works just fine. However, you NEED to know how to conduct an analog style search though, which is very different. Using that Tracker beacon searching "analog style" I was always as fast or faster than my co-competitors in "find the Beacon" games.

I see a lot of analogies between this slide and Tunnel Creek. Huge group, no one knows each other, victim numbers and identities unknown. Also it was in loose snow in the trees on a steep slope, all complicating factors. Large group dynamic burials is kind of a bold new frontier of avalanche problems you stumbled upon. There just weren't that many people in most past avalanches; now things are difficult in new ways.

From the armchair, I'd note you were attempting to take charge more than most, which is commendable. It seems overcoming social norms, stigmas, and fears is critical in a situation like this. I'd also postulate that it seems that committing to the role further and abandoning your own search, declaring yourself "search leader" and organizing groups and tasks would actually provide a net benefit in a situation like this in the future. Obviously this would be the most difficult of all roles to assume, but people work better when given a task.

In your "search" role I must commend you for at one point attempting to clear an existing and growing pile of snow from below. This is an efficient and highly underrated part of speedily unburying a victim.

First, thanks for posting; don't be hard on yourself - everyone can improve! As others said, I think you did many things right.

On beacon specifics: I also have some negative observations about the Trackers, and my Barryvox Pulse seems to outperform them in the group drills I've done - on both range and accuracy.

One more interesting point: last year we had some cases of new Trackers switch from Search to Transmit in the middle of a search. One case was with a lady who was in Search but was just skinning after someone else and not looking at her beacon. All of a sudden I was seeing more victims. I figured out it was her by the distance and told her to check her beacon, she didn't believe me at first but was pretty surprised when she looked at it

One more interesting point: last year we had some cases of new Trackers switch from Search to Transmit in the middle of a search.

That's a setting that you can change. It switches back to transmit after 5 min or so if it set up that way in case you get buried by a slide while searching.