http://www.assda-sardogs.org/ This is the only blog with multiple categories en-us Nucleus CMS v3.22 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.assda-sardogs.org//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://www.assda-sardogs.org/ http://www.assda-sardogs.org/index.php?itemid=33 There is still some more work to do, such as publishing the old articles onto the new site and updating some of the information, especially the USAR section. So please come back from time to time and check up on the latest development of our organisation.]]> News http://www.assda-sardogs.org/index.php?itemid=33 Tue, 2 May 2006 23:01:33 +1000 http://www.assda-sardogs.org/index.php?itemid=38
In response to this request, ASSDA accepted this responsibilty and put on standby for deployment the following teams:

K9 Team Leader	Elke Effler
K9 Team 1	Peter Effler with Olga
K9 Team 2	Luke Edwards with Delta
K9 Team 3	Alex Withers with Uschi
Logistics	Christine Brady

The Games finished without an incident and with that, another chapter also closed in the history of ASSDA. Peter decided that this assignment will be the last one for his partner Olga. She is now 11 1/2 years old and deserves to take it easy from now on. Mind you, I don't think that Olga thinks the same way. In the last few months leading up to these Games, Olga has performed exceptionally well in training and showed the young brigade how it's done.

Peter & Olga

The K9 team Peter & Olga had been internationally certified and operational in Wilderness search (1998), Snow/Avalanche search (2001) and Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) since 2004. This team has been on two searches for missing persons and has participated in many operational exercises and demonstrations.

I am sure that Olga will get her occasional search for a victim as one just can't suddenly turn off a working dog. Peter is now focussing all his efforts on his new GSD bitch Liesel, but that is another story to be told some other time.
]]> News http://www.assda-sardogs.org/index.php?itemid=38 Sun, 2 Apr 2006 20:21:00 +1000 http://www.assda-sardogs.org/index.php?itemid=34 Testing ASSDA’s current capability in an operational environment
Report By Alex Withers
Firefighter / South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service(SAMFS)
ASSDA member

ASSDA and my self as a member of ASSDA were invited by the Melbourne Fire and Emergency Services Board (MFESB) to participate in an 8 day USAR exercise “Labyrinth 2003” at the Maygar Army Barracks in Broadmeadows /Melbourne.

Last shift

The task given to ASSDA was to supply the USAR search dog teams to assist the USAR task forces of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland in their efforts to locate trapped victims at the disaster site. Indeed ASSDA was the only K9 capability present at the national exercise.

For most of the USAR task forces this was their first opportunity to work with dedicated USAR SAR dog teams in Australia. It was also a first for the members of ASSDA to work with USAR rescue teams in an operational exercise and demonstrate dedicated USAR search dog capabilities to the Australian USAR task forces.

The aims of the exercise with respect to the K9 search resources where as follows

1. To test ASSDA’s current capability at a national level exercise involving a major structural collapse scenario incorporating a variety of search scenarios complicating the location of trapped victims.
   
2. To evaluate ASSDA’s capacity to manage its resources and integrate with the USAR taskforces of the MFESB, New South Wales and Queensland.

Exercise Objectives at a K9 team level included

1. Assess USAR dog team procedures, deployment tactics and the skills of locating trapped persons in a prolonged disaster exercise.
   
2. Assess the integration of the K9 USAR teams with the USAR task forces from the different states.
   
3. Assess the logistical, management and resource impacts of a significant event

Structure of the ASSDA USAR dog Team at Operation Labyrinth
For the purpose of the Labyrinth exercise, ASSDA supplied a team leader (Fire Fighter Alex Withers) two dog / handler teams (Elke Effler with Achim and Peter Effler with Olga and one support person (Christine Brady) for base camp and logistic support.

Ideally, an USAR dog team should consist of three dog/handler teams and a team leader. Unfortunately at this time ASSDA had only 2 dogs experienced enough in their training to undertake the rigors this exercise required. This made deployment consideration more difficult as we could not apply the roster pattern that we would normally apply at an event like this.

The searches at Labyrinth 2003 were between 15 to 60 minutes and with careful consideration and management of time for rest and feeding requirements, we were able to have the K9 teams ready for deployment almost all hours of the day or night with a minimum of lead time required prior to taskings.

Area of operations & conditions upon arrival of the K9 search teams.
Upon arrival at the exercise site, the K9 Teams were required to pass through entry control and registration and then initially staged to the rear of forward control. The K9 Team leader was then requested for a hot briefing with the Victorian USAR Taskforce Leader.

Disaster site

The initial scene comprised a four-story residential apartment block built on pylons and containing an undercover car park. This structure had been hit in the pylons by a truck and trailer containing large quantities of hazardous substance and had caused a partial pancake collapse of the residential building. Several containers on the trailer had ruptured and created a spillage causing a severe Hazmat risk to survivors and rescuers.

The initial rescue response was large-scale mass decontamination of survivors, the stabilization of all other remaining containers on the trailer, the removal of any damaged or leaking containers and finally the treatment of any spilled material. The removal of all survivors coupled with the size and scale of Hazmat operations lead to a shortage of information on the actual structure involved with virtually no local knowledge available in the initial stages of our deployment, with the bulk of the initial information primarily coming from Hazmat operators themselves via chain of command. The K9 team was immediately placed on standby and preparations made for a tasking to conduct hasty searches of the peripheral areas of the rubble pile for survivors.

Once engineering gave the all clear that the pile was stable, search strategies changed from peripheral searching to over the pile hasty searches followed by more targeted searches of areas of interest shown by the dogs or from information being received and forwarded to the K9 team by forward control during taskforce briefings.

Once debris removal was commenced and access had been gained into the structure, K9 search teams also began internal search operations in an effort to locate victims and / or confirm directions in which to continue operations.

Search Operations
In all, the K9 teams had 18 calls to assist with searching for and locating trapped victims and of these, we were twice stood down before a search could commence. The searches were generally easy at the beginning (peripheral rubble search) but became more difficult as rescue teams advanced and more tunnels were created. Tunneling and debris removal in turn created new and changing drafts and wind conditions that made solving search deployment issues and problems more difficult.

Tunnel search

However the K9 teams discovered that the dogs had adapted well to the internal conditions and were not generally confused by the scent of rescue crews working inside in other areas. At all times though crews were removed from the search areas prior to the entry of dog teams. The K9 teams performed better than many had expected and in summary they achieved a 100% success rate with all alerts (always confirmed by the second dog), locating 16 live victims with one later to become a ‘deceased’ dismembered training dummy after the dogs were removed from the search area. The confirmed alerts were usually strong and on several occasions the dogs had shown interest in areas but did not actively alert. On these occasions it was later confirmed that a person had been extricated from that area not long before so this re-enforced the teams' confidence in their dogs' abilities and the soundness of their alerts.

Overall the teams' confidence increased as the exercise progressed. The more searches the teams did, the more diverse the problems the teams faced and solved, the more confidence the teams and Taskforce members gained in the use of dogs in a USAR environment.

Deployment, briefing and search tactics ran smoothly with the team leader appraising each tasking before briefing the handlers, discussing search tactics and committing them to the search area. As the exercise progressed, this became a well-oiled routine with handlers having a clear idea of what they were going to face and how they would deal with the search. If the dogs for whatever reason did not perform as expected or were unable to make a find, the handlers and team leader were able to quickly reassess the situation and together develop an alternate search strategy for consideration by taskforce operations.

Elke &Achim ready for next search

Forward Control (taskforce operations) was briefed verbally by our team leader both prior to and immediately after a search tasking with a written report made by the K9 team leader detailing search areas, strategies, findings, internal structures, hazards etc and suggested future tasking was delivered to Main (Command) Control 10 -15 minutes later for review and briefing of all relevant personnel. Again, the involvement of the K9 team leader with all levels of operational management at this exercise not only helped raise the profile and awareness of the K9 teams, but also provided significant exposure for SAMFS’s involvement through their support of myself and thus through my ability to participate with ASSDA, the support of K9 USAR teams in general.

Integration with USAR task forces
Once the taskforce teams had experienced some initial searches with the dogs, an understanding, respect and acceptance of the K9 teams quickly developed and often resulted in the taskforces committing the dogs to rather challenging operations in an effort to further test and understand their capabilities. All taskforce crews (Vic, NSW and Qld) quickly learnt to appreciate the advantages of dog teams and made full use of them as part of their search and rescue strategies. In fact, on many occasions taskforce operations where not fully commenced until the K9 teams had conducted an initial search of the area of operations prior to the commencement of each shift.

ASSDA K9 Equipe

At all times the K9 teams felt fully accepted as a search resource by the various USAR taskforces. In addition, taskforce operations always included the K9 team leader's advice and assessment in their overall search strategies, and at all times accepted a dog's indication of victim location or direction without hesitation. Considering the professionalism and the professional status of these USAR taskforces, this was a great compliment to the K9 teams' work and dedication to achieving an internationally credible search resource.

It was also extremely gratifying to see how quickly the K9 USAR teams were incorporated into the general search strategies. In fact, one almost got the feeling towards the end of the deployment that we had all been operating together many times before rather than the fact this was the first time a dedicated K9 USAR search resource had been used at a national level.

The above is especially brought home considering that the initial K9 team deployment was for 3 days only, but due to the teams’ success and upon special requests from participating USAR taskforces, the K9 teams were asked to stay for the duration of the exercise (8 days) and play a part in the National Taskforce trial.

In Summary, Operation Labyrinth 2003 highlighted several key points

• The Labyrinth 2003 exercise demonstrated that a well-trained USAR Dog Team greatly contributes to the success and efficiency of USAR Task Force operations.
  
  
• That we need to aim to maintain a minimum of 3 operational dog teams to be on call.
  
  
• As a matter of priority, teams who have passed the Suitability Test must gain operational qualification under a REDOG assessor in early May 2004 .

Considering that this was our very first operational USAR exercise with the USAR Task Forces, ASSDA and myself are extremely satisfied with the outcome considering our aims and objectives. This exercise gave us an excellent opportunity to gather much needed experience in working with all the relevant USAR teams. The experience and the way the teams fulfilled their tasks gave ASSDA and myself much confidence in the future capability of K9 USAR teams in this country that are trained to internationally recognized standards.]]> News http://www.assda-sardogs.org/index.php?itemid=34 Fri, 5 Dec 2003 20:22:00 +1100