Organization/Business: The London Search and Rescue Team
Short Bio or Organizational Mission:
The London Search and Rescue Team was formed in 2002. For 20 years, we have trained and provided volunteer ground searchers to London Police Services, St. Thomas Police and OPP and many other police forces in SW Ontario. Our members train twice a month, every month, and they are on call 24/7/365 in all weather conditions. Searchers are fully trained in missing person behaviour, outdoor navigation and orienteering, clue awareness, map and compass work, evidence handling, first aid, and the psychology of survival.
What do you want people to know about how you or your organization is creating change in our community?
The London Search and Rescue (LSAR) Team was recently awarded a grant to purchase two electric assist all-terrain bikes and an AED. At the onset of a search, searchers are tasked by the police with walking major pathways looking for immediate clues. This is called a hasty search. These hasty searches and the clues they may find will inform manpower decisions during the next phase of a search. With these bikes, our initial hasty searches will take significantly less time which will lead to more focused searching earlier in a search.
The new bikes, in addition to speeding up initial search taskings, also serves as a rapid means to get medical equipment to where it is necessary. Often search teams can be very spread out and specialized medical equipment will remain at our Command Post until it is needed. Now, instead of walking that equipment to a search team we can bike it to them saving precious time when lives are endangered.
“The donated equipment is a game-changer” says LSAR Commander Jamie Walls. “A Hasty search could take an hour or more to cover 5km and we can now do that in significantly less time. Locating missing persons faster can save lives. This equipment completes the enhancement of our hasty search project. We are grateful to Lutheran Social Services London for their generosity in funding this project” Originally, LSAR aimed to purchase two pedal bikes, but after explaining what the bikes would be used for, and obtaining quotes from several bikes stores, Brandon from To Wheels, a downtown London bike store reached out to LSAR to suggest Electric Assist bikes. Brandon noted that searchers would not want to bike 20km then be drained when they locate a missing person. It was an excellent suggestion. LSAR worked with To Wheels to obtain the bikes. The bikes, and an AED, were funded by Lutheran Social Services London.
LSAR is a local not-for-profit established in 2002, and is ready to respond to missing persons searches 24/7, 365 days a year. The London Search and Rescue Team has no formal funding sources and relies on donations from the public and community partnerships to make sure that we are ready to respond, whenever we get the call. The donation of the AED, two bikes, and accessories would have taken LSAR over a year to fundraise for, so this donation from Lutheran Social Services London allowed us to bring this project to fruition much sooner than expected.
What are you working on that you would like to share with the community?
The funding of this project allows LSAR to focus on other major projects. Our next major project is outfitting our 30 new searchers who are in training. Each of their uniforms costs $300/person and we have a sponsor-a-searcher program online at https://lsar.ca/sponsor-a-searcher-program/.
Contact Name: Jamie Walls
Contact Email: commander@lsar.ca
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