About SAR of Deschutes County
U
nder Oregon law, the sheriff of each Oregon county has a mandate to provide some aspect of Search and Rescue (SAR) activities within their county. Each sheriff decides what level that response might be. Smaller counties may have less potential for calls and thereby fewer resources, while larger, more active counties generally have more missions and resources to respond accordingly.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s SAR mission is to provide professional, high-quality search and rescue assistance to citizens of Deschutes County, visitors who recreate locally, and mutual aid to other counties as requested. The ability to save a life or effect a successful rescue is often dependent upon how quickly the person can be found or reached.
The unit consists of general volunteers and a number of specialty teams, including swift water rescue, mountain rescue, winter search, medical evacuation, water operations and canine search. Additional teams include Incident Management, Air Operations, tracking and an internal horse team, separate from Posse assets. All members are trained in Wilderness First Responder as a minimum; other volunteers are EMT-certified, including Paramedic. Those medical team members operate under the direction of a Physician Adviser from St. Charles Medical Center-Bend.