Stuff You Should Know - How Search and Rescue Works

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

There are thankfully about as many ways to look for someone as there are ways to get lost. And the people who dedicate themselves to saving the lives of people who are missing take their job seriously.... Learn about this fascinating world in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.
Starting point is 00:00:17 We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass
Starting point is 00:00:37 and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.
Starting point is 00:00:57 Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, Atlanta and Georgia and surrounding states and heck, the world. We are doing our first ever live Christmas show. Yeah. In our hometown this December.
Starting point is 00:01:16 Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, it is stuff you should know. So what can people expect? So, Chuck, they can expect all the gloriousness of all of our Christmas specials that we do every year, but live on stage and with Spiked Eggnog. Yeah, we're just gonna sit up on stage and play all those shows on a tape recorder. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:01:35 It'd be like, this one was great. You guys remember this? It'll be 10 times better than that because it's gonna actually be an all new show with us live on stage one night only in Atlanta, GA. Yeah, it's gonna be pretty cool, everyone. And it is December 8th at the wonderful Center Stage Theater here in Atlanta where I've seen various shows
Starting point is 00:01:54 over the years, and we're gonna be there now. Yeah, we're going to be there. It's very intimate, cool little theater, so we're looking forward to it. We're looking forward to seeing you. Go to SYSK live for information and tickets, and let's get in the Christmas spirit. Oh, and on Thursday, August 9th,
Starting point is 00:02:14 starting at 10 a.m. Eastern time, there will be a password-protected presale. You use the code HIPPYROB and you will get your tickets that day, a day before they go on sale to the general public, which is Friday. So either get them Thursday, get them Friday. Either way, come see us in Atlanta
Starting point is 00:02:33 for our one-time-only Christmas special. That's right, they go on sale this Friday, so don't snooze or you will lose. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and wait for it.
Starting point is 00:02:52 There is first-time-ever guest producer, Dylan. First time? First time, I confirmed it with him. He's nodding. He said we're the only show here that he hasn't guested as a producer. Oh, really? Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:03:05 So the band has been lifted. Finally. I don't know if it was his band or our band. It was his band. I don't know if it was his band or our band. I don't know if it was his band. I don't know if it was his band or our band. It was his band.
Starting point is 00:03:17 Oh, okay. They finally wore him down. But you know, he's the regular producer on Afropunk Solution Sessions. Yes. Which is a pretty awesome podcast. It is. Hosted by our pals, Eve Jeff Coat,
Starting point is 00:03:28 and I didn't pronounce the S on Eve's, but it's Eve's. I've verified this. And Bridget Todd from Stuff Mom Never Told You. Bridget's Todd. Right. She has an S as well. Right.
Starting point is 00:03:40 But they do, they kind of present like Afropunk like the tour, the musical tour. Oh, yeah. The awesome musical tour. They have like a side thing called Solution Sessions. And it's kind of like Ted Talks, but for significant things that get overlooked generally. So like race-centric stuff or reproductive rights
Starting point is 00:04:04 or things like that. Right. And it's pretty awesome. It's good. And you can get it anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Look at that.
Starting point is 00:04:11 Well, we gotta pay him somehow. I was just gonna slide on my half-warm sparkling water as payment, no? I've got a cold one here. Oh yeah? Yeah. How do you get those? Out of the fridge.
Starting point is 00:04:25 So Chuck, before we get started, again, a couple other things. There are two episodes in here that I want to do separately, okay? Oh, I bet you I can guess them. Let's hear. Civil Air Patrol. No.
Starting point is 00:04:40 What? Sure, but that wasn't one of them. No, well, that was one of mine. Okay, so there's three and this is a meaty episode. Geez. What's the other one then? I don't know. Oh, you know it.
Starting point is 00:04:50 Scooba or we already did Scoobacat. We did, I forgot about him. Did you interview the guy who made Scoobacat swim around? Yeah, and it's funny. We often mention Jack Hammers is our worst show ever. I forgot, it's Scoobacat. Is it? Did you go back and listen?
Starting point is 00:05:05 No, but it's gotta be the worst episode ever, right? We'll have to have like a listening party. That was like not even a thing. We'll listen to Jack Hammers and Scoobacat. It was a thing, it was that one cat. Yeah, and I guess we can just come out and say now that Discovery Channel made us do that. That's like kind of one of the only times
Starting point is 00:05:22 we were steamrolled. That's funny. Otherwise we have autonomy. I don't know if that was being steamrolled as much as Rick rolled. Well, now I don't even know what you're gonna pick then. All right, I'll tell you then. No more suspense for you.
Starting point is 00:05:35 Coast Guard. No, I don't feel like you know me at all anymore. I don't. Search and rescue dogs? Oh. They're like, dude, I looked at the article. It's at least as big as this one. All right.
Starting point is 00:05:48 Robust, and they don't have a lot of overlap. Okay. It's not like doing recycling twice or anything like that. And the other one is getting lost. Oh, well that's esoteric. Right, right. I didn't expect you to guess the lost one.
Starting point is 00:06:01 I thought you'd get search and rescue dogs, but there's like a whole psychology to getting lost. And this is about finding people. I wanna talk about getting lost sometime. It's just too much to put onto this one. So it's gonna be its own episode, okay? Great. All right.
Starting point is 00:06:14 And I'll earmark Civil Air Patrol because fellow network host colleague, John Roderick of Omnibus is, or was a member of the Civil Air Patrol. Is he mayor yet? No, no, no. Because that'd be something. If you were like known as the flying mayor of Seattle.
Starting point is 00:06:33 You'd love to be the flying mayor of Seattle. But even still, member of the Civil Air Patrol, it's pretty interesting. So he flies. Did, I don't know if he's current, but Roderick is, he has a very interesting past. That'd be. Well, he's an interesting dude.
Starting point is 00:06:44 It'd be kind of fun to do Civil Air Patrol and pick his brain. Okay. Let's do it. His weird brain. Yeah. All right. Flying brain.
Starting point is 00:06:52 So we have our two organic show plugs in. Yeah. No one noticed. Check and check. So we're talking today about SAR, search and rescue. I forgot I wrote this. You did write it back in like a million years ago. Yeah, that's when I was, I was so excited
Starting point is 00:07:09 to be the adventure writer. You wrote a bunch of adventure stuff. And I was named adventure writer. Here's the funny part of this story. I was named adventure writer. I was really excited. Then after a while of doing this stuff before the podcast, I went into an unnamed boss.
Starting point is 00:07:27 Oh, I know this story. And said like, hey man, I really think that like, I'm kind of wondering about the future here and where, where I could go. And if I could work my way up somehow to do things and he very politely was like, I think this is kind of the deal. And like, there is not much of the future here
Starting point is 00:07:44 beyond writing these articles. Yeah. And then that same dude would change my life by tossing it podcast our way. Yeah. Isn't that funny how things work out? It is hilarious. No future here.
Starting point is 00:07:57 Right. I think he even put a cigarette out in front of you. On my hand. It was really painful. But a reminder still. But you wrote some good stuff. The survival stuff is good. We have more to dig through.
Starting point is 00:08:11 I appreciate it. I was nervous going into when I saw this was my article from back then. I was like, oh man, this is going to stink. But it was actually a decent article. It was. It was an expansive article too. There's a lot of stuff to it.
Starting point is 00:08:25 Because there's a lot of stuff to search and rescue. There's a lot of different kinds of search and rescue, right? For sure. I mean, you know, now I feel like the sham is up because you already know all this stuff. So I can't tell you anything. I guess I'll tell you guys who are listening to the podcast. But there's a lot of different types of search and rescue,
Starting point is 00:08:41 right? There's urban search and rescue, which happens after, say, like 9-11. USAR? Yep. I've also seen it US and R. Oh, really? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:51 It's a little mouthy. It is. There's marine or water rescue, which is usually the one that kind of comes to mind when I think of military rescue. But then there's combat rescue. Like the Scott O'Grady thing, which we'll touch on. Sure. And then there's like the normal search and rescue
Starting point is 00:09:08 that I think a lot of people think of, which is somebody getting lost in the woods or their desert or something. And a bunch of sheriff's deputies kind of spread out and start looking for you. Deputies and just people. Yes. Did you know that before you researched this article that people like dedicate themselves to spend their own
Starting point is 00:09:25 money on training and equipment and things? Yeah. The reason I know that is because my dad had a touch of this when he owned a Jeep years ago. And I told stories about him going out on snowy days and using his toe inch to pull people out of ditches. So I was just aware of there being a general thing with certain outdoors people where they like to get in there
Starting point is 00:09:52 and volunteer. And if they hear someone's trapped in the woods near their house, they're out there. Yeah. Like I knew they existed. But there's like an actual process you can go through and become a registered searcher. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:08 And I think some of these people are just do-gooders. And some of them maybe were like, man, I never was able to become the wilderness firefighter that I wanted to be or the paramedic maybe. And so I'm going to get the state to force them to hang out with me while we search. Like this is how I can live out that unfulfilled, I was about to say fantasy, but that means
Starting point is 00:10:31 an unfulfilled calling. Desire, dream. All of them. And then there's the last group of people who are like, I want to see a dead body in the woods. They start joining SAR. Man, don't get teamed up with that guy. It doesn't always, oh, isn't that always the way, though?
Starting point is 00:10:46 Sure. It doesn't always work out as the thing. Sometimes search and rescue becomes search and recovery. Yeah. But I mean, most of this applies to it as well. Because search and rescue typically starts out as, or search and recovery starts out as search and rescue, right?
Starting point is 00:11:02 There's always, it's kind of neat. Like if you think about it, there's really no better quick sketch of humanity than a group of people who've never met the person they're looking for, take their time and effort and put themselves in peril to go try to find somebody who's missing and starts out on the hopes that they're still alive. Yeah, and a lot of times what we were talking about there
Starting point is 00:11:27 is like someone was hiking and got lost, and these people kind of regularly go out and do this. But then the stuff that really gets me is like the missing child, where entire communities come together to form quarter-mile-long lines walking through a field or the forest together. That's the stuff this is like, man, I can't even take it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:54 Way to bring it down, Chuck. Hey. That's what I'm here for. So OK, so let's start at the start. So if you wanted to be a, I guess it's professional, right? If you're in the Coast Guard or in the military and you're trained for this, you're a professional search and rescue person, right?
Starting point is 00:12:14 It's not like you have your regular duty, and then on the side, you get called out for star stuff. Well, I don't know about that. I mean, I think that's necessarily the case. I think the Coast Guard, well, we'll have to find that out, actually. I don't think they're sitting around waiting on a rescue. Yeah, the thing is, I saw that the Coast Guard rescues
Starting point is 00:12:36 an average of 114 people a day. So they're always just rescuing. So I wonder if they have like, they're just, yeah, that's what they do is they're searching rescue people are searching and rescuing all day every day. I don't know. I'm stymied right out of the gate. Nice work.
Starting point is 00:12:49 Sorry, man. But we'll start with the Coast Guard, because they're actually the heart of search and rescue. They've been doing this for at least 50 years now. Yeah, I mean, there's a school in Yorktown, Virginia, called the National Star School. And it's operated by the Air Force and the Coast Guard. And their motto is really great, always ready,
Starting point is 00:13:09 comma, that others may live. And I believe a couple of years ago, they celebrated their 50th anniversary as a school. And 2016. Yeah, because when I wrote this, I believe it was the 40th anniversary with the most recent. This thing's so old, you were talking about a change that Noel was undertaking in 2009 in future tense.
Starting point is 00:13:32 Like when 2009 comes around, if it does. The gray beard hairs are really showing. So they have three simultaneous classes of students going on at this star school at all times. And their goal as a program is to save at least 93% of people and 85% of property that's at risk. Pretty good goal. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:57 And to be ready to be there and ready, I believe within two hours total response time, and to be ready to go within a half hour. Right, so the moment they're activated to the moment they show up on scene, two hours tops. Pretty good. Yeah, that's great. And then imagine rescuing 90, 95%, 90%, 93%.
Starting point is 00:14:17 Let's split the difference, 93%. First it was 95 and they're like, shootin' a little high. Yeah, exactly, but 90's not enough. Yeah, and being, you know, going through the test and the physical and mental testing for this is tough. Yeah, so when I was researching this initially, I was thinking like, oh, this is cool or whatever, but I've actually come to admire anybody who does this.
Starting point is 00:14:41 Not just because they're out doing this, but there's a lot of things that they're doing that I can't. And now we've really entered that thicket, which is like the rescue swimmer's test. And so the whole thing starts out with 25 pull-ups, which right there, I'm done. I'll give you three tops. Maybe 15 chin-ups.
Starting point is 00:15:04 Are they the same thing? Do you put like the chin on the bar and a chin-up? What's the difference? Chin-ups are knuckles facing you, pull-ups are knuckles facing out. Gotcha. So chin-up, pull-up. Pull-ups are harder.
Starting point is 00:15:17 Yeah, either way, maybe three tops. Because chin-ups, you can kick and swing yourself up. But a pull-up, especially if you do the studly arms apart pull-up, like that number. Yeah, no, mine are like right under my face. Yeah. So you got 25 of those, followed by 100-yard obstacle course.
Starting point is 00:15:38 I'm assuming it's a pretty rough obstacle course. I haven't seen pictures of it. Yeah, and this is while you're carrying 250-pound dumbbells. Again, have you ever picked up a 50-pound dumbbell? Just once. That's not comfortable. Never do it again. And you especially don't want to do it
Starting point is 00:15:53 while you're doing an obstacle course. It's the size of a football field. Right, so then you're timed while you march one mile and you think, big deal, this is after you've already done these other things though. Right. And you're carrying a 40-pound rescue litter, which is, it's called the Stokes Basket too.
Starting point is 00:16:12 It's that caged stretcher that you see so often on the news. And in the perfect storm. I like that movie. It's a great movie. Yeah, I don't know about great, but... It was a good movie. It was good enough. You convinced me.
Starting point is 00:16:27 And then it's still not over because then you get into your rescue harness, you put on your fins and your snorkel and you swim a third of a mile pulling a victim in one of these rescue litters. You swim a third of a mile to the victim and then another third of a mile pulling a victim. Towing them.
Starting point is 00:16:46 And you gotta do all that in 27 minutes. And I think this is after, it's not like they're like, all right, we'll go rest a few hours and then you'll do this next part. Right, right. Plus they make you chug a cup of pancake batter at every stop.
Starting point is 00:17:01 And so that's just the swimming part. There's also the inland training, which you gotta learn to climb rocks, you gotta learn to rappel. There's a 180 pound dummy that they'll like tangle up in a tree, 50, 60 feet in the air. So you go get it.
Starting point is 00:17:17 Yeah, you gotta figure that out. Sometimes you have combo scenarios like, this dude's in the tree, this dude's in the water. Like go figure it out. And don't use rocks to get the one out of the tree. No. It doesn't count. Never.
Starting point is 00:17:30 So that's pretty, that's the Coast Guard. And I think the Air Force go in for that same Academy or maybe all members of the military go to the Coast Guard one, I believe. Yes. So if you're a military search and rescue person, you train at the Coast Guard Academy for it, right? Right.
Starting point is 00:17:48 If you're just a normal everyday person and you wanna do it, there are SAR schools around the country, but they're all private. There's no accreditation. Right. I think it's probably buyer beware in some of those cases, but I also got the impression
Starting point is 00:18:03 that there's actual legitimate SAR schools. It's not just somebody who's like, thanks for the money, chump. Buyer beware as opposed to full guaranteed, or your money back? Right. You will find your first person or all your tuition is reimbursed.
Starting point is 00:18:18 And then some of these folks ride horses. It's called Mounted SAR and horsies, even though it's an age old way of getting around are really valuable in search and rescue for quite a few reasons. Yeah. Like, first of all, they're horses. So they can go farther than your dumb human meat body.
Starting point is 00:18:39 Sure. Plus, they're nice to have around as well. They're nice to have around. And they can get you to places where you could kinda walk, but you probably shouldn't be walking. A horse might be a little more sure-footed or donkey. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:18:53 And yeah, I like how you said, if you've been sitting in the lab analyzing stuff for the last few years, you might benefit from riding a horse out to a search and rescue location. Yeah, I mean, that's a movie scene waiting to happen if it hasn't already. It is Wayne Knight just griping,
Starting point is 00:19:12 all mad that he's being dragged out into the woods. Right, but then they put him on the horse. He's backwards on the horse. Somebody stopped this thing. The other thing you can do, obviously, the horse is a lot stronger than a person. So if you need a rescue leader, towed up the side or pulled up the side of a cliff,
Starting point is 00:19:29 you can attach it to a horse. And then you're gonna tell them about the radio thing. I never thought of this. It's good, go ahead. So you can station horses in position along a route when you get further and further into the woods. And if you keep a radio transmitter on each one, it acts as like a radio relay network.
Starting point is 00:19:47 Yeah, just install a Bluetooth into a horse's ear, 10 horses ears, and you've got comms. Yep. Not bad. It isn't bad at all. I feel like we should take a break. Okay. All right, let's do that.
Starting point is 00:20:01 And we'll talk about urban SAR right after this. I suppose so. See you soon. My brief. We continue. Thank you, guys. I'll see you in ten minutes. On the podcast, HeyDude the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the
Starting point is 00:20:20 cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?
Starting point is 00:20:48 Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s.
Starting point is 00:21:08 Turn to HeyDude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?
Starting point is 00:21:33 If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.
Starting point is 00:21:48 Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step, not another one, kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. And so tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Starting point is 00:22:17 you listen to podcasts. All right, ma'am. So we're talking about USAR or U.S. and R. Yes, depending on who you're talking to. This is, um, this is a whole different type of fish, a kettle of fish. When you're talking about urban, sorry, it's not woods, it's not like cliffs, it's not the ocean. It is enormous skyscrapers that have crumbled in on themselves and you're sure that there are people trapped inside and you have to figure out how to get into these, this rubble
Starting point is 00:22:59 and get them out without getting killed yourself. Yeah. And this is a division of FEMA, um, probably should come as no surprise. And believe in 1991 is when they set this up, uh, the national response plan for disasters and they have 25 national USAR task forces and in the case of a flood or earthquake, what else, hurricane, plane crash, hazmat spills, tornadoes, any natural disaster, a terrorist attack. Sure.
Starting point is 00:23:31 Um, I think they, uh, they were all called out for the Oklahoma city bombing. Yeah. Um, definitely 9-11, um, Katrina, they were integral and some of the bigger ones that you can list off basically every single one of these task forces was called in to the, to, to assist. Yeah, and assist is the key word there because they are supporting, uh, local and state emergency systems who generally take the lead in these cases. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:24:03 Uh, 31 people, I think per team, uh, for a USAR task force and how many did they, they deployed 20 of these, uh, on 9-11, like a ride out of the gate. Yeah. Um, all of them except for Virginia was activated and Virginia's was at the Pentagon instead. Oh, sure. But like the rest of them were in New York for 9-11. It was just, I was reading a, uh, an firsthand account from a, uh, SAR team member at 9-11 and they were just like, it was just utter chaos, like the people who were in charge
Starting point is 00:24:35 were all dead when the second tower collapsed. Yeah. Um, there was just like, he said there was just total leadership vacuum that got filled pretty quickly, but I've never seen anything like this before. It was nuts, but the, just the way that they had to improvise was, um, pretty, pretty astounding. Oh yeah. And there's all sort of secondary dangers, you know, after a building like that collapses. Right.
Starting point is 00:24:58 The, well, I mean, I guess we can talk about it a little bit, but I mean, everything from hazardous materials leaking to, you know, electricity down to electricity that could, you know, shock and kill you to water mains bursting and, you know, filling up spaces and drowning people. Right. It's like they're, every single front you can imagine they're attacking. So one of the first things they do, um, again, every, every, um, search and rescue situation or every disaster is actually operated initially by the local cops.
Starting point is 00:25:31 Yeah. That's who runs search and rescue. And like you said, FEMA's there to assist and usually the state agencies are there to assist too. But, um, one of the first things that happens when FEMA's, um, USAR teams come on the scene is they have like structural engineers who are licensed professional engineers who have experience in construction or inspection or something like that, who come in and say, they look at this.
Starting point is 00:25:56 So once this was a nice tidy structure, now it's a different kind of structure, and it's not tidy at all and there's a lot of hidden dangers, but their job is to come in and assess the structure of the rubble and figure out how to create safe passage into this thing. And they, it's pretty amazing that they can do it at all. Yeah. And you mentioned the dogs. So we won't get too heavy into that, but, um, I believe the, the largest deployment of dogs in history was for 9 11.
Starting point is 00:26:25 Yeah. I think 80 at least. Yeah. Search and rescue dogs. 12 hours at a time. All right. That's enough about searching and rescue dogs. And I value them.
Starting point is 00:26:36 Can I say that? Sure. Okay. That's, that's no big news. No, take it back. So, um, one of the ways you want to talk about what they do when they come into these structures and figure out what to do. Sure.
Starting point is 00:26:49 I didn't know this. I guess I, I'd never thought about what they would do, but there, there are Kevlar bags that you can put underneath up to 70 ton pieces of like concrete or metal or whatever and inflate them and it will actually lift them up to like almost two feet off of the ground. It's pretty amazing. And then once you have that, you start to shore it up. You put in steel beams and then, or wood depending on how heavy, whatever you're lifting is. And you actually start to create basically like a old timey, like minor 49 or mine shaft
Starting point is 00:27:25 into this place. Yeah. Just shoring up and lifting and shoring up and along the way to, to stabilize the structure. And then once you have entry into this place, then you start sending in different kinds of, um, rescuers. So you've got like the medics who go in. Sure. You have people who send in cameras or listening devices, um, to, to try to find survivors.
Starting point is 00:27:50 You got the people who are testing the air quality to make sure that the, um, the air conditions or, um, the conditions of the air aren't like deadly. Yeah. I mean, can you imagine this is all like you're, you're on the clock too. So like you have to make sure it's safe to go in there. So you're just not killing people that are going into rescue. Right. And, but at the same time you're trying to get people out of there.
Starting point is 00:28:13 You're not just like, well, let me go investigate the scene and what's going on down there. Right. So like you're on a timer, but you have to make sure it's done safely too. So it's just like, I can't imagine how overwhelming that must be as a rescue effort leader. Yeah. Because there are people who are running this whole show doing their logistics. People, there are people who are overseeing everybody and making sure that this whole chaotic scene is running smoothly.
Starting point is 00:28:36 Man. I can't imagine a more stressful job, especially having that clock ticking on lives, just, just draining away, just hanging over your head. That's just nuts that people do this. Yeah. And you said you've got hazmat specialists there. You might have to suit up yourself before you go in. You might have heard on your listening device or from a camera that some people are trapped
Starting point is 00:28:58 like a hundred feet into a place you can't even get. So you send them like a breathing tubes, or you might send a rescue litter down there and say, if you can get in this thing and strap yourself in, we may be able to pull you out. Do you? Cause we can't get in. Do you? Right.
Starting point is 00:29:15 So you have like a heavy equipment operators running like cranes and bulldozers trying to like pick off the pieces that the structural engineers have said, like you can get rid of that one, get, and they'll, they'll like lift them up and move them and try to remove as much stuff as they can. But yeah, all, again, all of this, the clock is ticking. Do you remember the, I think it was the Bay Bridge collapse in San Francisco during the World Series in I think 1989? Oh yeah, the earthquake.
Starting point is 00:29:41 Yeah. So what happened San Francisco was playing Oakland in the World Series and that earthquake happened. And do you remember like the whole, the top deck just fell down onto the other deck on top of people in their cars and like some people survived. It's amazing there are people out there that like, I would just start crying in place and huddle in a corner, but there are people out there that can stay calm enough and are experienced enough to just be like, all right, well, this is what we do.
Starting point is 00:30:10 Starting right now. Man. Yeah. Those are the people who slap people like you and me and tell us to snap out of it. Like share, share is one of those people. And maybe some of those people think, can you imagine sitting there and talking about our job? Right.
Starting point is 00:30:26 And explaining what we do, how perilous that is for these two. That's right. I got a paper cut earlier. It wasn't going to say anything about it, but it was rough to help prove your point. We should shout out the civil air patrol though, even though I do want to do a show on that that. Sure. They are a nonprofit with more than, I don't know what the numbers are now, but when I
Starting point is 00:30:47 wrote this, there were more than 55,000 civilian pilots and cadets and they since 1941 have supplemented our own military's aviation. It's pretty neat. And like Roderick was, he was pretty young when he did this too. I guess he was a cadet. I got you. That'd be my guess. I'll bet he had the most polished shoes you've ever seen.
Starting point is 00:31:09 I'll have to ask him about it. Because I've never actually spoken with him at length about it. Yeah. I think it was civilians, right? Yeah. Okay. And it was originally supposed to be like, we're the liaison between the Air Force and the rest of civilian America.
Starting point is 00:31:26 Yeah. But then they said, hey, we think there's some Nazi submarines off the coast of Maine. Can you start dropping bombs too? And they said, giddy up. Oh, I'm sure they were delighted. Yeah. They started dropping bombs and depth charges in World War II and things were never the same after that.
Starting point is 00:31:40 Yeah. So, Civil Air Patrol, your day is coming. Okay. Sorry, I just gave a little more information. Oh, that's right. You want to go back and edit that out? No. All right.
Starting point is 00:31:50 So, we talked a little bit about some of the equipment you saw, I should say, carries with them. Yeah. But it's impressive. And again, if you were a mayor and your local sheriff or your local police chief or the police commissioner called you and said, we had a building collapse and we need some help. So, we call the governor and the governor says, we'll see what we can do, but we think
Starting point is 00:32:13 this is a federal thing. They call the president and the president says, FEMA, get in there. And FEMA comes free of charge with tractor trailers full of supplies. Yeah. And what I saw, it's about one point, just one task forces equipment is like a $1.4 million package of 16,400 pieces of equipment. Everything from like medical supplies to generators to the bulldozers to everything. And they just show up and say, how can we help?
Starting point is 00:32:46 You're in charge. How can we help? Yeah. And it's almost like all the mundane things of assembling, it's like assembling a film shoot or something. You're like, well, these people have to eat. They have to go to the bathroom. Right.
Starting point is 00:32:58 Like all the... They need to sleep? Yeah. They need to sleep. They need to rest. They need to have a village, like in the case of a 9-11, or any major disaster like that. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty astounding.
Starting point is 00:33:11 I imagine this list grows daily because the one thing you don't want to ever happen is to be on the scene of something of a natural disaster and be like, give me the thing. You're like, oh, we didn't back that thing. Why not? Well, I like 16,400. It's a nice round number. But like you said, everything from chainsaws and jackhammers to bolt cutters and porta-potties. Yep.
Starting point is 00:33:38 Which we did an episode on. We'll probably do one on bolt cutters one day 20 years from now. We did one on jackhammers. We did. Should we talk about ASAR? ASAR? Yeah. Air and sea?
Starting point is 00:33:51 Yeah. So this is where the extraordinarily trained rescue swimmers and divers come into play. Yeah. This is amazing. I think the stat I got in here was it has a 50% dropout rate to go to the school. There's like higher, depending on the year. No. I mean, there's other military schools that have higher washout rates, but not many.
Starting point is 00:34:17 It's mostly special forces. I think the Ranger school typically has about the same washout rate as the rescue diver school, rescue swimmer school. It's substantial. There's a really good chance you're not going to make it. Actually, a 50% chance you're not going to make it. The Coast Guard says that, and this is pretty interesting, 95% of all sea rescues are less than 20 miles from shore, and 90% of these are only rescue, thankfully, because of all
Starting point is 00:34:46 of our distress beacons that were armed with these days. You can usually, well, 90% of the time, you can find these people pretty quickly, at least. Yeah, and the Coast Guard, I don't remember exactly when it was, but they updated the distress system that they had since the 70s, where you called in on a radio frequency and said, made it, made it, and tried to give your position. Maybe you had a beacon that was operating on that frequency that they could try to track. They updated all that with something called Rescue 21, as in the 21st century. That's way more sophisticated than it was before.
Starting point is 00:35:24 Now, they still monitor that channel for voice maydays, but if you press your beacon, it enters this vast computer and communications network that the Coast Guard maintains in at least a 20-mile area outside of all of America's shores. You're going to get their attention pretty quick. Yeah, and these beacons now, they operate at 406 megahertz, and that's the newer standard. Oh, no, they will as of 2009. Yeah, one day. Man, I was a young man when I wrote this.
Starting point is 00:36:03 Jesus. Just a little pup. Just a little pup. These things are manually activated a lot of times, but they can also be automatically activated. So if it hits water, not if you spill water on it, but if it's submerged in water, like the boat is sinking, it will automatically activate, or, and this is cool, if it goes above a certain g-force, then that means bad things have happened.
Starting point is 00:36:26 Don't take it on a roller coaster. One thing I saw about that Rescue 21 is one of the updates that they made to it was it has geo-locating now, so they can tell where a distress call is actually coming from. Yeah, like it's satellite been pointed, right? Right. And that actually does away with the prank calls of yesteryear. People would actually prank call distress calls into the Coast Guard. That's so expensive.
Starting point is 00:36:53 And now they can be like, we can see you're calling from Nevada. You're not out in the Pacific Ocean right now. You jerk. Wow. Isn't that terrible? Can you imagine leading the Coast Guard on a wild goose chase? What kind of jerk would you have to be? Or are you like some sort of unstable search and rescue guy who's like, let's get out there?
Starting point is 00:37:10 It's like the arsonists who are also firefighters. Very interesting. I thought so too. And then one more thing about the distressed beacons, there's a new, so the weather satellites that NOAA operates, NASA has onboard instrumentation that they have an ASAR office themselves. NASA does. And their whole thing is basically tracking human beings through their beacons, hopefully just through their beacons and not through like, I don't know, their cell phones.
Starting point is 00:37:39 Now, if you press your beacon, it immediately goes up and immediately gets shot out to the rest of the, there's actually a global search and rescue network. So wherever you are in the world, that distress signal will be spread out. And then in the meantime, as they're getting their resources together, they can start to try to find where you are, but you get their attention almost instantaneously now thanks to NASA. Wow. Eventually, the beacons will be that instantaneous and also give out your coordinates down to
Starting point is 00:38:14 something like 100 meters. I thought you were going to say, eventually it will predict your disaster. No, eventually it'll just shoot a tractor beam down onto you, pull you up to the satellite and it'll land you at Edwards Air Force Base and serve you a nice hot meal. Wow. And then send you on your way. That'd be great. That's the future.
Starting point is 00:38:34 So combat SAR is next and I don't know, I just, I don't think about this stuff a lot because I generally just think of the military as like, well, they just do everything. I thought that Gene Hackman assembled like ragtag groups of people that go in behind enemy lines like 10 years later. I thought that's how we did it. What was that? Uncommon valor. Oh, that's right.
Starting point is 00:38:58 Maybe one of the best post-Vietnam movies of all time. I don't know about that. Have you seen it lately? I saw it within the last probably five years. Really? Yeah, dude. It's good. All right.
Starting point is 00:39:11 I'm not a gun guy, but when that guy gives Gene Hackman the menu of the like heavy artillery guns. I remember that when I was a kid thinking that was the coolest thing ever. It's still pretty cool when you see it today. I was like, hmm, I would take that one and that one. It's so funny like, I think, I don't know, we're not gun guys at all yet the notion of a gun menu just lights us up. What is that all about?
Starting point is 00:39:35 There's some part of our brain. It's just brainwashing for movies. Yeah. Probably. I guess. Sure. That's my guess. All right.
Starting point is 00:39:43 So CSAR, they're basically the first people to arrive behind enemy lines in the course of battle and the US Air Force takes lead in this situation. So anytime there's like a Scott O'Grady situation where someone has, let's say, ejected from their jet behind enemy lines. Dude, on fire. Yeah. Well, that's the worst case scenario probably. That is when CSAR really earns their metal.
Starting point is 00:40:14 Yeah. You know? I mean, the story of Scott O'Grady kind of says it all, right? Earns their metal, tests their metal to eventually earn a metal? Sure. Is that what I meant? Yeah. I'm mixing metaphors.
Starting point is 00:40:28 I think you got it all together. Yeah. So I think the Air Force still is tasked with combat search and rescue. Correct. But they're starting to do it jointly with the army, I think, as well. But they have what are called expeditionary rescue squadrons. That is the name of the people that you want coming after you. And ERS.
Starting point is 00:40:49 Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, behind enemy lines, under a tremendous amount of danger, there's usually two helicopters. One goes in and actually airlifts the person out. The other helicopter is there to shoot at people and be like, stay back, stay back. Because this is the, again, it's behind enemy lines. One of your pilots has been shot down when you guys have gotten lost or captured or something.
Starting point is 00:41:15 These are the people who go in and get them. Yeah. They have planes, too. Long-range search planes like the HC-130, which can actually refuel these helicopters, the HH-60s, which they said the planes are when there was not much of a threat, then I think the helicopters they use up to a medium threat. But like you said, they have ground support going on, too. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:40 And there was a real push to update their helicopter that they used to one that's specifically designed for CSAR. But I think the plug got pulled on it. Oh, really? So they're still, I think, working with the HH-60s, I'll say they call them double H60s. That's even longer. Okay. This is kind of the cool part for me, for CSAR, is you don't really think about this,
Starting point is 00:42:06 but if someone has been shot down and they do have radio comms ability and they can get in touch with you, you need to be able to authenticate this signal, whether it's a beacon or a real human voice on the other end, because they could be compromised. They could be sitting there with a collision a cough to their head. And being forced to lure someone into a trap of a foreign enemy. So you have to be able to authenticate these calls, and they do that by never giving their full details over the radio as it stands. They'll say to add numbers or subtract or multiply digits in your call signs and your
Starting point is 00:42:52 rank and your unit numbers and stuff like that. Right. And then they verify who you are. And then once they verify who you are, they'll come get you. But some conditions are more ideal than others. And when Scott O'Grady very famously went down in Bosnia during the Balkan War, I think in 1995, they received his distress signal. Finally, I think six days on, he'd been surviving by drinking the sweat out of his own socks
Starting point is 00:43:20 and eating bugs and spending the whole time evading, getting captured, did just an amazing job of staying alive and staying uncaptured. But he sent out his beacon or they received his beacon or distress signal like a couple hours before dawn, and they're like, this guy's already been missing for six days. We found him. We can't let him just stay for another six days because the ideal conditions are after dark. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:47 They couldn't do that. So two hours after that, they went in after him, like in broad daylight, I guess. Wasn't it Marines that actually got him out? Sure. And what was it? Wasn't it like 20 minutes or something ridiculous? Two. Oh, two minutes?
Starting point is 00:44:01 Yes. From the time they arrived to the extraction? Yeah. To the time they were gone again. Gotcha. That's pretty good. I'm sure he wasn't lollygagging. I'm sure he was like, let's go.
Starting point is 00:44:11 Yeah. He's like, oh, wait, I forgot my basket. I was making with reeds. I got to go back and get it. Pretty amazing. So I saw about his story, I looked up what happened with him. He released a book called Return with Honor. And you know, they made that movie behind enemy lines with Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman
Starting point is 00:44:33 again. Oh, was Gene Hackman in that? He was like the guy who was trying to get Owen Wilson out. I never saw that movie. He sued Fox, 20th Century Fox, and then eventually Discovery Channel. He sued Overcasting. He sued, no, he sued for basically appropriating his life story. And the problem that he publicly said he had with it was that Owen Wilson used foul language,
Starting point is 00:44:57 was portrayed as a hot dog pilot, and disobeyed orders, and that Scott O'Grady was none of those. Did he actually Scott O'Grady in the movie, or did they thinly disguise it? Thinly disguise, which meant they didn't need to pay him any royalties. Right. And it also probably meant he lost his lawsuit, I imagine, right? I don't know. I didn't see that.
Starting point is 00:45:15 I just saw like a 2001 entertainment weekly article on it. The definitive source. It's good journalism, man. All right. Well, let's take a break, and we'll talk about some search techniques and other fun stuff right after this. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.
Starting point is 00:45:57 We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?
Starting point is 00:46:20 Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Starting point is 00:46:43 you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.
Starting point is 00:47:07 This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael.
Starting point is 00:47:19 And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Life in relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so
Starting point is 00:47:39 we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. Now this feels like a no-brainer, but it's actually a little more interesting than you would think establishing your search area. Yeah. So let's say, where do you look?
Starting point is 00:48:07 Now we've moved on to somebody say like lost in the woods is a really good example of this, right? Yes. It happens a lot. Yes. So if you're a sheriff's deputy, you may or may not have any SAR training. If you're the sheriff, you may or may not have any SAR training. That's probably unlikely these days, but it's a possibility.
Starting point is 00:48:26 But even if you're the only one in your department, you've got a whole department who you need to explain what to do. Uh-huh. And the first thing you have to do is start looking for answers to your questions, but you need to know what questions you have to ask first. So you're looking for any kind of evidence specifically of where the last place the person was seen was. That's the first thing you want to find.
Starting point is 00:48:49 Yeah. Last seen or I think last seen can also be last, well, that's not true because last known position is different. So if someone was last seen leaving a trailhead for their hike, let's say they were last seen at noon starting at this trailhead. That means that another human being who's now talking to you as an eyewitness said, I saw this person. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:17 Like maybe they either saw someone on the trail or they checked into a ranger station and got their back country permit or something. They're like, I'm off. So long suckers. Right. Uh, that is different though than last known position. So if someone is missing their last known, uh, last seen place may be the trailhead, but three miles in, if they find that person's baseball cap, then that is their all of a
Starting point is 00:49:39 sudden their last known position. If you compare that to where they started, you might be able to reasonably come up with maybe they're headed in this direction and they might be somewhere in this area by now. That would be an enormous break because if you can figure out when they were last seen like you were saying, and then when this thing was found, you know the direction and roughly the speed that they're, they're going. Yeah. And this is, there are a lot of assumptions involved here, um, but hopefully you're, you
Starting point is 00:50:09 know, hopefully someone wasn't like, they dropped their baseball hat and then decided to go in a completely different direction. They did it. They closed their eyes and twirled around and just headed out. Yeah. So that's the, that's how that works. Um, but generally it's, it's a circle unless you starting from the last, the place they were last laid eyes on, right?
Starting point is 00:50:29 Yeah. Cause they could theoretically be going in any position in any direction. Right. Um, unless you come up with something called a choke point, which is kind of interesting. Uh, that is where you have either a man-made feature or some sort of geological natural feature that, uh, cuts off an area like, well, they definitely, yeah, couldn't have climbed that 300 foot cliff. So now we can go in this direction or cross that crazy river.
Starting point is 00:50:54 And the, say if it's a river, if it's a cliff, you can just position somebody at that cliff and be like, stay here in case you see them. If it's a river, you can say, well, they would have, if they wanted to cross, they'd have to go to this bridge. So stay here on this bridge in case they come this way. That's one thing to do when you have a choke point, right? Yeah. So if you have a searcher named Cliff and a searcher named river, yes, to avoid confusion
Starting point is 00:51:19 and if Jeff bridges is searching as well or bow bridges, either one to avoid. Oh, well, I think we know that Jeff would be doing the searching, right? I don't know. I think both would just be telling them how to do it. Maybe he is the boss, the older brother, right? Man, those guys are the best. Like they're, they're... Have you met both?
Starting point is 00:51:37 I've never met either one of them, but I've just heard interviews with both and they're like, they're like brothers should be. Oh, you've heard interviews with them together? No, separately. Oh, but they... Talking about each other. That is so sweet. It is very sweet.
Starting point is 00:51:51 They're like best buds. That's cool. And very big brother, little brother. I did not know that. Yeah. It's kind of neat. I wonder what the quads are like. Oh, man, I'm curious about that because Randy is, you know.
Starting point is 00:52:03 Yeah, I know. He's developed into something else. He has. So... Oh, oh. So if you were searching from the last... Known position? No, not the last known position.
Starting point is 00:52:18 Last place scene? Yes. The last place scene. So that's where you start. If you're searching from that and you start heading out and you find that baseball cap, that is a huge clue, like I said. And probably the people who found it are what are called the hasty search team. Right.
Starting point is 00:52:33 Because right when you establish a last place scene, you send some people out who are usually like very experienced, very well-trained SAR people. And they start scrambling out in every direction in that circle. Lightfoot. Looking for... Yeah, that's part of it. They probably climb a tree like nothing. Looking...
Starting point is 00:52:52 Going to the places where it would be most likely that somebody like this would go to. Yeah, and that's when they think like, you know, this person's in danger, there's a storm coming in or night is falling and it's going to get really cold. You deploy these hasty search teams, they're not out there coming the ground for clues. No, but I think it is a matter, of course, that the first thing you do is deploy the hasty team and then you follow up with the deliberate people. Yeah, the clue team, that's what we'll call them. All right.
Starting point is 00:53:23 Colonel Mustard. They're a little slower and they are... And I think this... I mean, well, I guess it kind of depends. It could be for someone just trapped in the woods, but definitely they use these for those community searches when like a kid is missing or something. Yeah. These are the things you see on the news and people are walking very slowly through the
Starting point is 00:53:41 woods because a clue could be a cigarette butt on the ground, you know? And you have people, say, space 20 feet apart and each one is responsible for everything ahead of them and 10 feet to the side and 10 feet to the other side. And then that way, if everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing, every square inch of this search area is covered eventually by these searchers, the second group of searchers. Yeah, they'll also use track traps sometime. So they'll like maybe go to a trail, a place on a trail or any place really, and they will put sand on the ground and then they can go back and check that sand if there were footprints.
Starting point is 00:54:25 They know that it wasn't their footprints, so that might be a last known position, perhaps. So Chuck, if you get lost and they find you and they say, hey, come back with us, you might say, no, I'll find my own way back. I'll crawl back myself even though my legs broken. Why would a human being do that? Well, because you might get a bill at the end of the day or week or month. Yeah, depending on what state you get lost in. Yeah, this is a bit of a, this is a lightning rod in the outdoor community because there's
Starting point is 00:55:02 a lot of facets to this. One facet is, hey, if you did something dumb and you went somewhere where you weren't supposed to go and you weren't equipped to do this or experienced enough to do this, why should a taxpayer have to fit your $60,000 bill of rescue? Right. It's a legitimate point. It's a legitimate point. So they say pass laws in some states to deter people from doing something stupid.
Starting point is 00:55:31 On the other hand, the other side says, search and rescue is a pure public service. Just like you don't get a bill from the fire department. If you do this kind of thing, then people will think twice about calling for help if they don't have the money and they know they're going to get a $60,000 bill, they might actually just put it off too long and then by the time they say, okay, fine, I need some help, it's too late and they're going to die out there. You don't want anybody thinking about money during a search and rescue operation. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:04 I mean, it's sort of a weird balance you're trying to strike between encouraging people to get out and explore the wilderness, but only wanting people that are to go in certain places and that have a certain experience level to do so. And certainly not like the worst case scenario like you were talking about is I'm in trouble, but I'm not going to send out my beacon. So apparently the Colorado Search and Rescue Board actually put together 15 cases, this is according to Outside Magazine, of people who actually delayed calling for help. To EW.
Starting point is 00:56:39 Yeah, because they knew that they would be charged or there was a chance that they would be charged. So it actually happens, it's not hypothetical, it happens in real life. So there are some states like New Hampshire apparently is the last place you want to have a search undertaken for you because they actually do bill. They've done something like $70,000 in billing for like 60 rescues since 2008. Those are pretty low cost rescues. Yeah, it's surprising.
Starting point is 00:57:10 Like this one guy in this article is Search and Rescue a Public Service? Not exactly. It's the name of the article and there was a man named Ed Beacon who had an artificial hip, went hiking by himself on a bad weather day, tried to jump onto a ledge and dislocated that artificial hip and took it all the way to the state Supreme Court when he didn't want to pay his $9,300 bill and the state Supreme Court said, sorry. Yeah, because New Hampshire has, in their law, it says you can be billed if you are shown to have been negligent and the state Supreme Court agreed with the case against
Starting point is 00:57:46 him that said he had a replacement hip, so a faulty hip and he knew that there was a large possibility of bad weather. They said stay home old man. Basically. What are you doing? Yeah, he followed it up to the Supreme Court and lost and after that you got no recourse. Yeah, and there are quite a few states that have laws like this on the books that range from very specific to very broad and just because your state has this on the books,
Starting point is 00:58:14 a lot of times it's to dissuade people from being dumb. It doesn't mean you're going to get hit with a bill even if they have the law on the books. It's up to them whether or not they want to pursue that and then a lot of states have programs that you can pay anywhere from $3 to $25 to basically say if you've paid this money that means that you don't get charged for rescue. Right, it's like a communal pot that everybody pays into with the chances of them actually needing it very slim, but if they do need it then they've got it, which I think is a great idea.
Starting point is 00:58:48 Not bad. I think any outdoor enthusiast that regularly does this would throw in $3 or $25. Sure. You know? Yup. For a year. Per year. Yeah, that's not bad at all.
Starting point is 00:59:00 Yeah. And the federal government apparently does not, although that can always change. You never know. They don't get reimbursed. But they have a policy of not charging. Yeah. Last thing I saw, there was an app. You know, I'm crazy for apps like Glucco for diabetes.
Starting point is 00:59:16 There's also an app called Dronesar and it basically takes over your drone and flies your drone in a search pattern for a search and rescue mission. So this is if you're a drone pilot who has lost? No. If you have one of those motor, multi-rotor drones that you like to fly around and buzz your neighbor's roof with. Yeah. So you're a drone pilot?
Starting point is 00:59:41 If you show up to a search and rescue mission, say, I got a drone. You want to use it? It's got a video camera on it. They say, sure, download Dronesar and the Dronesar app will take over your drone and fly it as part of this search. Gotcha. It's pretty cool. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:00:01 Shout out to my buddy Lowell, my sister-in-law's boyfriend is a drone pilot, a couple of shoutouts for Lowell. He's a drone pilot and a good one because I've seen him in action and it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. I would imagine that. He doesn't crash these things. Although, it's kind of funny to see drone fails on YouTube because it's always going great until those one I saw today where there was some sort of ape or monkey preserve and
Starting point is 01:00:34 they were flying all around. It's like, man, this is gorgeous. Look at all these apes and monkeys doing their thing. And then it flies up close to one and this monkey just fully takes a stick and goes whack. And then the next thing, you see it falling on the ground and then all these monkeys start descending upon it and poking it and stuff. It's awesome. It's pretty neat.
Starting point is 01:00:53 So shout out to Lowell for that. And I meant to say a few weeks ago, I finally vaped with Lowell and gave it a try. I was like, you know what? He's a vapor. We got a lot of flak for dissing vapors. And I was like, all right, let me try it. And it was one of those flavored things. With no nicotine?
Starting point is 01:01:17 No. It had nicotine. Okay. At least you're smoking nicotine. Yeah. And it was, I will say this, it was interesting. So are you hooked on vaping now? No.
Starting point is 01:01:27 No. No. No. No. No. I'm not, I never did it again. I took a couple of puffs. It's like, well, that's interesting.
Starting point is 01:01:35 It tastes, it was like banana. Okay. So I went around still like the pleasure of inhaling vapy banana. You're like, but the funny thing is I can't stop thinking about it. It was weird. I was like, I mean, it wasn't like, oh, this is disgusting, but I didn't want to do it again either. That's good, Charles.
Starting point is 01:01:54 I think that is the lesson here. I just thought I'd give it a shot. So. Well, good for you for trying new things. Yeah. Don't ever do that again. Yeah. Lowell's leading me down a bad path.
Starting point is 01:02:02 You got anything else? Nope. A whole suite coming. Just wait, everybody. I can't wait. And in the meantime, you can look up Chuck's awesome article, SAR Search and Rescue on How Stuff Works in the search bar. Since I said search bar, it's time for Listener Mail.
Starting point is 01:02:22 I'm going to call this Golf Pro. Golf Pro. Okay. Hey guys, like many in the golf business, my first job included time as a picker, as a teenager. And of course, I soon became acquainted with the multiple bangs and clangs of titleists ricocheting off every side of the cage. Remember we talked about taking aim on the driving range at those folks going in Beatles?
Starting point is 01:02:41 A few years later, when I was beginning my careers in assistant pro, I found myself supervising these kids, one of whom relished his time on the range, and especially the chance to engage in good natured trash talk whenever his cart came within reach. On one such occasion, after a friend and I had missed him on several point blank attempts, he turned the cart away from us to make another pass on the far end of the range, confident that our aim would certainly not be better as he moved further away. Traveling in a direct line away from me, he had reached a distance of about 150 yards when my laser beam three iron shot took flight on a low trajectory and never left its target.
Starting point is 01:03:17 It came as a surprise to him and to me, when instead of the usual clang followed by laughter, we heard a dull thud and a low groan. It turned out our range picker, which is the car, included a narrow gap of about two and a half inches where the back of the cage met the top of the seat in the rear of the cart. Despite my countless hours in that old machine, I never noticed that neither had he. Thankfully, his likable demeanor had led him to be well tipped by the membership and the wallet in his back pocket, thick with dozens of dollar bills, took the brunt of the below. I don't see how that would have happened, but if he was sitting on his wallet, how
Starting point is 01:03:55 to hit him in the butt. Maybe it was a tiny, maybe he has a big butt, I don't know. I don't know either. It sure makes a lot of love this guy. Brian says, I have never made a hole in one. This still stands as my best shot I've ever had. That's better than a hole in one. One might argue that it's even more difficult.
Starting point is 01:04:12 That is Brian. He is a golf pro. Thanks, Brian. In Northern Cali. He said to both of us, if we're ever out in Carmel and we want to A, play golf with a golf pro, we could do that. Or if we want to actually drive the picker, he would let us do that. I just rather play golf.
Starting point is 01:04:30 I want to do both. Okay. We'll shoot. We'll do it. Let's do it. Thanks a lot, Brian. That was also an excellent, well-written email if you ask me. It's great.
Starting point is 01:04:43 Brian Sleeman, he's the head pro at the Preserve Golf Club. It's basically a John Cheever short story. Great. Maybe up deck. I don't know. One of the two. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with me and Chuck and offer us something awesome like Brian
Starting point is 01:04:55 did, you can go on to our website, StuffYouShouldKnow.com, find all of the links to our social needs and catch our attention that way. Or you can just go straight to the horse's mouth and send us an email to StuffPodcast and howstuffworks.com. Use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Starting point is 01:05:53 you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help, and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody ya everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye-bye-bye.
Starting point is 01:06:23 Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.