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Practice Regularly
Practice Regularly
In order to master and maintain the skills necessary to execute a fast, efficient rescue, you need to practice avalanche rescue regularly. Practice avalanche rescue not just at the beginning of the season, but also throughout the season to keep your skills sharp. Take an Avalanche Rescue Course every couple of years to get experience working with others in realistic scenarios and coaching from experienced professionals.
Include Scene Assessment and Patient Care
Include Scene Assessment and Patient Care
Practice not just avalanche rescue, but also review what to do if you are caught and the skills required to evacuate an injured person from the backcountry. Always practice with the Avalanche Rescue Quick Reference. How you practice is how you will respond in an emergency.
Practice with a Checklist
Practice with a Checklist
The Rescue Practice Checklist is a tool designed to help you ensure you and your partners are practicing correctly and not building bad habits. Have a partner use it when you practice to give you feedback to ensure you are creating the right habits instead of reinforcing poor skills.
Use The Practice Checklist to debrief each scenario. Identify what you are doing well so you continue to do it. Identify where you would like to improve the next time you practice. Create practice strategies that target specific skills. Consider videoing your team’s response and reviewing it together, identifying moments of confusion and places for improvement.
Time Your Response
Time Your Response
Another critical piece of evaluating your rescue skills is to time your response from the moment the team begins its search to the moment you’ve extracted a transceiver and turned it off. Your group should strive to extract two buried transceivers, both 3ft (1m) deep, in less than 10 minutes
Why is the time component so critical? The quicker you can rescue the avalanche victim, the better their chances of survival. While the probability of survival is 80% for those buried for 10 minutes, the probability drops to 40% after 15 minutes and then 10% after 35 minutes. In North America, these probabilities of survival in an avalanche are further reduced by the increased incidence of major trauma. Minutes can make the difference between life and death. Timed practice helps your team measure the improvements in speed and efficiency, so you can feel confident you are responding as quickly as possible.
Setting up a Practice Area
Setting up a Practice Area
Set up your practice area in a realistic scenario; not a parking lot or flat snow slope, but an area with varied terrain and deep snow that is safe from avalanches. Choose a tracked-up area free of noise and electrical interference like power lines, buildings, or other permanent infrastructure. Start by burying just one transceiver in a 100 x 100 ft area, at a minimum of 3ft (1m) deep—this is the average burial depth of an avalanche victim. You can put a 12 in square of ⅜” plywood over the transceiver to give you a larger target and to protect the transceiver from probe strikes. As your skills improve, bury two transceivers about 20ft (6m) apart. Practice using your transceiver to find each target on your own as well as in teams. Having two buried targets requires a systematic, calm approach to differentiate the signals. Make sure to bury the transceivers at least 3ft (1m) deep, as this facilitates realistic probing and shoveling practice.
Practice with your backcountry partners, rotating tasks and sharing responsibilities. Always use the Avalanche Rescue Quick Reference in The Fieldbook. Have one member of the team observe and use The Rescue Practice Checklist. Communicate clearly among teammates while practicing, clearly verbalizing what each member is doing. This will translate into clear, calm communications in the event of a real emergency, and this will save valuable minutes in the field.
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