Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue

PNWSAR H2O is one of our organization’s newest speciality teams. It consists of certified Rescue 3 Technicians and specially trained crews, with the primary goal being to assist the HRCSO with its marine safety program on the Columbia River. Over the past four years, we’ve built out our capabilities and expertise in concert with HRCSO Marine Deputies, helping ensure the safety of kite boarders, windsurfers, and a variety of other water sports users. We now maintain two vessels and offer four distinct water-based mission capabilities

1. (SRT) Swiftwater Rescue technician: Trained for river-based incidents.
2. Marine Patrol:A boat and specially trained crew who patrol during special events and on weekends during peak season to assist with large, river-based incidents.
3. Flood Response: A boat and specially trained crew designed to respond to flood events.
4. Search and Recovery: A boat, a specially trained crew, and specific gear designed for the surface and subsurface search and recovery of missing subjects.

The Trail Running Team (TRT) is an elite specialty unit that serves as a rapid-response force for emergency search operations. Our team members — all certified Type 2 operational responders — are specifically trained for hasty response scenarios and long-distance trail missions. With the ability to cover 10+ kilometers of challenging terrain at pace, our trail runners provide critical first-response capabilities and the ability to reach a subject(s) hours before conventional ground teams.

Our specialized training and lightweight deployment model allows us to quickly locate, assess, and initiate care for subjects in distress while coordinating with other SAR resources. As a complement to standard ground search teams, we excel in rapid reconnaissance, subject location, and initial medical response. The TRT maintains constant readiness through regular training exercises and strict fitness requirements, ensuring our team can deploy promptly when time is of the essence in life-saving operations.

The Rope Support Team provides PNWSAR with the technical expertise and equipment needed to manage rescues in challenging, steep environments. Missions involving cliffs, steep snow, and rugged terrain rely on the RST to rig and operate technical rope systems to ensure rescuers can access subjects, perform their duties, and get everyone home safe.

All RST members are required to meet Rescue3 standards, which means every rescuer can build secure anchors in a variety of terrain, rig technical twin-tension rope systems, ascend and descend a rope, and transport a subject in high-angle terrain alongside a wide range of other skills. With more stringent training requirements for RST members, PNWSAR ensures that if a mission involves steep terrain, the RST is well equipped to manage it.

We take the emotional health of our rescuers and subjects seriously. The Embedded Resilience Team exists foremost to advocate for the emotional health of PNWSAR through training, raising awareness of defined modalities in emotional resilience, and providing emotional support to the general team membership. It is made up of specialists who understand and support a common resiliency language and want to be a resource for the team by being able to understand and explain the tools that the ERT has chosen to utilize, all with the intent to help them and others be better equipped to stay emotionally healthier!