WHAT WE DO

Once contacted by authorities within our jurisdiction, such as the police, RCMP, EMS, etc, our team will assemble at a predetermined place with required resources to establish situational awareness of the incident and begin our  work. 

Mountain View SAR can respond to numerous types of incidents in almost any environment, with various capabilities and specialized resources. 

On any given mission, a Search and Rescue Alberta team may be providing any one of the following services for the province:

• Searching for lost and missing persons (e.g. finding a lost child in the woods, an urban search for someone with dementia, or a despondent individual in any setting)
• Rescuing someone in distress in the backcountry (e.g. administering first aid, treating for hypothermia, and/or acute trauma, etc)
• Providing an evidence search for the RCMP (e.g. searching for human remains, crime-scene evidence, weapons, etc)
• Assisting in disaster response and/or humanitarian relief, such as flooding or forest fires (e.g. evacuations, and assisting First Nations emergency operations centres)

CAPABILITIES & SPECIALIZED TRAINING

To meet the diverse needs of individuals, each SAR Alberta team has several capabilities, including but not limited to:

• Ground SAR (urban, rural and remote)
• Inland water SAR
  • Swiftwater
  • Flat water
  • Ice
  • Diving
• Mountain operations (avalanche and alpine)
• Evidence search
• Helicopter operations
• First aid and medical first response
• Civil emergency and all hazards disaster response
• Recovery
• Tracking
• Technical rope rescue (high and low angle)
• Survival
• Cave rescue
• Canine
  • Canine human remains detection
  • Canine water operations for drowning subjects
  • Canine live find area search
  • Canine disaster detection for survivors and deceased

Some SAR Alberta teams also provide preventative education to the public to keep people safe and reduce the likelihood and severity of search and rescue incidents. For more information, please visit Outdoor Safety.

FIRST NATION SEARCH & RESCUE  

Search and Rescue Alberta teams also support the RCMP during search and rescue incidents on First Nation reserves.

Many First Nations are looking to establish their own search and rescue programs and have connected with Search and Rescue Alberta to create shared training opportunities. 

The O’Chiese First Nation is the first of its kind within the province to establish such a program. Currently, there are six fully-trained search and rescue members who are also members of the O’Chiese fire department.