Anyone here run with a mountain/wilderness Rescue service?

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I'm gonna be free all summer and i'd preferably like to stay out west and get involved in some wilderness rescue. I'm thinking colorado or montana but other places will work. I'm looking for rapids, bikes, helicopters, mountains, etc. I wanna save some lives and not shower for a few days.

does anything like this exist out there? some real flannel-shirt type of stuff?

 

[hakksar]

Yeah, I did SAR in Colorado for 9 years prior to medical school. However, most of the SAR teams here may not be willing to take on someone for just a summer. However, if you want to try and give them a shot here are the websites of a few teams along the Colorado front range:

http://www.alpinerescueteam.org/index.php
http://rockymountainrescue.org/
http://www.dcsarco.org/
http://www.larimercountysar.org/
http://www.epcsar.org/

Most teams require you to pass their basic training before becoming an eligible SAR member and they likely will not take you for just a summer but if you want to try give it a shot (my team was a little different in that they only take new members who are in high school but keep "graduate" members around for training and advanced skills). Their website in case you are interested is:
http://www.arapahoe-rescue-patrol.com/

 

[4ruralhealth]

I don't know what kind of experience you have in backcountry rescue or wilderness medicine, but a great place to learn is to take a Wilderness EMT course. Part of your training as a WEMT is backcountry rescue and you will become certified as an EMT I or EMT Basic. If you are already certified, then maybe you can help teach a course. Typically the training sites are in Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming. I would highly recommend the Wilderness Medicine Institute, which is affiliated with the National Outdoor Leadership Schools (NOLS) www.nols.edu/wmi/index.shtml Its a medically related mountain experience that looks good on a resume, what could be better than that!!

I'm gonna be free all summer and i'd preferably like to stay out west and get involved in some wilderness rescue. I'm thinking colorado or montana but other places will work. I'm looking for rapids, bikes, helicopters, mountains, etc. I wanna save some lives and not shower for a few days.

does anything like this exist out there? some real flannel-shirt type of stuff?

 

[sparky5]

I have been on SAR in the SF Bay area for 8 years now, doing mountain rescue in the sierra etc. and agree with previous poster, that for most places they won't take a "summer intern" Speaking for CA, almost 99% is volunteer, the rest are Sheriff's Dept. To get to go on the "exciting" backcountry missions you need to be very skilled in the backcountry and be around for a while. My team has a 2 weekend bootcamp twice a year that you need to pass to go on any missions, and I am sure other teams have similar teaching processes.

I know yosemite has a college intern, but other than that I think it would be hard to do it for a summer, there just aren't that many rescues (unless you are in a NP doing medical aid), and there is a boat load to know.

good luck, a wilderness EMT will help ALOT to get those few positions that do exist in the NP's.