+Malpas Wanderer Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 Our local area has in recent years experienced the death of two persons with similar circumstances. Both appear to have been reliant upon medication and were missing for a week or perhaps two before being found in woodland or water. One was an elderly lady but the recent one in the last few days was only 21yo and was found very close to a cache site (thanks to the cache owner for making the cache temporarily unavailable). An extensive search was set up for the elderly lady I'm not sure if this was the case for the young lady. My question is as we have a large membership with many persons routinely in the countryside and prompt communication methods could we offer a national service to assist in any way to atone such situations before they become fatalities? Is this something we could deploy similar to CITO? Thoughts and ideas welcomed. Colin Link to comment
+Munkeh Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 what like geocachers dig up the dead event? Link to comment
+The Golem Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 (edited) I think a bunch of well meaning but inexperienced people operating as some kind of search and rescue team would probably do more harm than good. I am sure most people (not just cachers) would help someone else in distress if they happened upon them, but I think organised searches should be left to the proper authorities - if the call goes out for volunteers by all means help if you can. Perhaps cachers would be more usefully involved in conservation work and things like CITO. Just my two pennies worth.... Edited July 8, 2006 by The Golem Link to comment
+Malpas Wanderer Posted July 8, 2006 Author Share Posted July 8, 2006 I think a bunch of well meaning but inexperienced people operating as some kind of search and rescue team would probably do more harm than good. I am sure most people (not just cachers) would help someone else in distress if they happened upon them, but I think organised searches should be left to the proper authorities - if the call goes out for volunteers by all means help if you can. Perhaps cachers would be more usefully involved in conservation work and things like CITO. Just my two pennies worth.... Seems like the insensitve Northerners are only interested in an Event, an Icon and Beer then. I think the general trend upon helping any one these days has to be treated with caution, are they going to mug you or pull a knife on you? as one of our cachers knows to his cost. But if a photo of the misper had been circulated and you observed said person in either routine of intensified caching a simple phone call to the authorities could reduce a 100 sq mi search area to 1 sq mi with no more interaction from yourself and perhaps conserve a life. Are there no other softie Southerners on line with views? In the case of the last incident I along with many others in the area didn't know of the misper until the tragic consequences and still consider geocaching possibly has a communication network suitable to circulate details to cachers within the area. Any such scheme would require full interaction between the geocaching community and the authorities. Equally to mispers perhaps then any such alerting could also extend to the notification of escaped prisoners etc. Do you fancy meeting a mad axeman on your next caching trip into the woods? Colin Link to comment
+sTeamTraen Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 >>Is this something we could deploy similar to CITO? So that would be six to ten weeks advance notice for twenty people to search an acre? Link to comment
+webscouter. Posted July 8, 2006 Share Posted July 8, 2006 I don't think Golem was being insensitive. Untrained persons will over look clues and often destroy something that a trained search and rescue person will notice. This more often than not results in a longer search for the missing person. Having been involved in searches for lost scouts I know that when we call in the experts they usually ask us to stay back until they have a chance to look at "virgin" tracks before allowing us to start the search. Link to comment
+Malpas Wanderer Posted July 8, 2006 Author Share Posted July 8, 2006 Untrained persons will over look clues and often destroy something that a trained search and rescue person will notice. This more often than not results in a longer search for the missing person. Equally so natural caching in the area could well destroy any something if cachers are unaware the area may become a search area. Generally looks like there is no interest so I'll close the thread. Link to comment
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