RescueOps - Ep. 7: Rapid Assessment and Triage

In this series, Claire Leverne—outdoor rescue expert and engineer—shares insights that SREs can draw from rescue operations. Check out the previous parts of the series for more context:

• Episode 1: What ICS search and rescue can teach SREs
• Episode 2: Communications Save Lives
• Episode 3: Checklists and Protocols Are Not Archaic
• Episode 4: Situation Awareness
• Episode 5: Scalability and Flexibility
• Episode 6: Cross-team collaboration

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When I first started volunteering with a search and rescue team, the thing that surprised me the most was how much time elapsed over the course of a rescue.

For a situation that is by nature time-sensitive, a full rescue operation can easily consume 24-36 hours in total, which includes a lot of “down-time” waiting for responders to coordinate, traverse, and report on their assignments.

Even working as an engineer, incidents are typically a long process – no matter how “time-sensitive” they are. For tech teams, coordinating between various teams, tools, and timelines can consume hours, if not days.

Rapid communication, coordination, and documentation are crucial, yet downtime is often experienced as teams synchronize, analyze data, and allocate resources.

Avalanche Awareness

In SAR, there is a scenario that’s an exception to the norm: avalanche rescue. Although responding to this type of emergency is very rare (depending on location), it is so urgent and high-risk that most professional rescue teams devote a substantial amount of time training for it every year.

High-stakes emergencies are also not the norm for engineers – but they do happen, and an SRE has much to learn from the efficiency of SAR triage operations.

Time is a relentless adversary in both contexts; every passing minute can drastically affect outcomes.

Some quick stats:

• In the event of an avalanche, the clock starts ticking the moment someone is lost under the snow.
• Trauma is a serious risk in an avalanche, but asphyxiation accounts for over 75% of deaths.
• After 35 minutes under the snow, a person’s chance of survival drops to below 30%.

Time in slow motion

When a rescue begins, the team moves fast – and I mean fast. The response needs to be swift and calculated.

Rescue units are already assigned by the time they arrive on-scene and they waste no time getting to work, entering the field in strategic waves meant to efficiently and thoroughly comb the debris.

Wave 1 - Rapid Recovery

At t=0 the strike team enters the field with receiver beacons on and probes ready. This is a small and fast-moving team wherein each member has a “lane” of the slope that they zig-zag up the mountain looking for a transmitter under the snow.

When they are able to hone the signal to a single point, they probe the snow for resistance and immediately start digging. Ideally when a potential victim has been identified, more rescue members are quick to jump into the work and the fast-searcher can continue their rapid traverse looking for more transmitters.

This strategy is meant to comb the mountain with a wide filter to hone for the most critical locations (root causes), and provide immediate assistance (patches or rollsbacks).

This phase prioritizes high-impact interventions and may involve delegating additional tasks to ensure other potential issues are also swiftly addressed.

Wave 2 - Triage

Once the strike team has been given a narrow head-start, a team of triage flaggers will enter the field. They will move at a slightly slower pace, looking for clues and assessing any injured person who is not buried.

No matter what they find—be it a ski pole or a boot sticking out of the snow—their job is to make a rapid decision about the finding and its criticality within the scope of the scenario as a whole. If it’s an article of clothing, they may mark it with a blue flag for evidence; if it’s a person they may do a quick medical assessment to determine how life-threatening the injury is and flag red, yellow, or black.

This stage is still acknowledging the time constraint under which all personnel are working, and the overwhelming need for efficiency. However, the focus shifts to balancing immediate responses with maintaining an overarching perspective of the situation.

Wave 3 - Slow Recovery

If any of the first two waves require additional hands, remaining team members may at any point enter the field to start the laborious process of extracting a victim – whether exhuming from underneath the snow, or providing medical support and hypo-wraps to any injured parties.

Both these are time-intensive. This slow recovery time is also the last step of the search when rapid methods have been exhausted. The strike team may return to other flagged areas on the mountain to do a fine-tooth comb of an area characterized by more equipment or evidence. Rescuers start to look a little closer at things that might have been missed in the first and second sweeps.

This phase is about approaching the scenario with methodical work. Teams must now put in sustained effort that may be labor-intensive, but emphasizes thoroughness and precision.

Clean Deployment Strategies

Behind the frontline action (staged in view of the field), operational coordination plays an integral role. In both avalanche rescue and tech incidents, there's a team that orchestrates the overall response strategy, monitoring progress, managing communication channels, documenting actions, and adjusting tactics as needed.

For SAR teams, there are a few overarching strategies that aid the efficiency and safety of the operation:

Single point of entry

Every rescuer enters the avalanche area by the same path first defined by the strike team; there is controlled access to the affected area.

This is intentional both to control scene safety, and also to maintain the integrity of the disaster area, preserving evidence and key indicators of the event and casualties.

More broadly, this maintains security, prevents confusion, and ensures a controlled response.

Planning for fatigue

Avalanche rescue is extremely demanding, both physically and emotionally. Performing under such a time and energy demand is a dangerous zone to sustain for most people. It’s important to plan fatigue into the response, with regular check-ins and a rotation of laborers for the intensive tasks. Every engineer knows what it’s like to be closely acquainted with “burnout.” Resilience and sustainability must be part of the plan for handling prolonged incident responses.

Conclusion

The parallels between avalanche rescue and tech incident response reveal core strategies that can improve outcomes in both domains. Rapid assessment, strategic deployment, and mindful coordination paired with fatigue management are crucial for effective incident resolution.

Practical advice for adventurers: recreating in snowy environments poses a whole new set of risks that many are unprepared to manage. Know how to pack and layer appropriately, but if you spend any time in the snowy backcountry, I also recommend investing in a basic AIARE-1 course to learn about snow behaviors and rescue. There are some very basic tips that’ll go a long way (slope recognition, cornices, terrain evidence, etc.).

Make good choices, and remember to pack snacks!