CAPITAL CLOSE-UP

spent alone in the snow, Kendrick’s
crew buzzed above him after relieving
Bakker’s team for several hours.
Bakker lauded the teamwork.
“We all have to work together. We
can’t do it alone,” he said, adding, “it
serves our citizenry at the highest level
when we work together.”
Bakker said the rescue involves not
just teamwork but also technology.
Alexander agrees. The pilot battled not
just cold and pain during the night,
but also communication woes.
Alexander spoke with his family sporadically
by satellite phone, but key
exchanges with rescuers on his handheld
radio didn’t happen.
“I’ve heard he (Bakker) has that big
loudspeaker thing. That would have
been good, because he could have
yelled down to me to change to another
frequency, then I would have turned
my radio on the right frequency and at
least we could have talked and I could
have said, ‘I’m doing fine. I’m just
waiting to get rescued,’” said
Alexander.
Bakker strongly advocates the public
address system as an added search-andrescue
tool that could even be used to
transmit the voices of mothers and
fathers whose children become lost in
the wilderness.
Recently, National Public Radio
interviewed Bakker following a successful
test of the system.
“This is one of the best things we
could have ever thought of having for
search and rescue, tsunamis, lost children
and adults in the woods or even
lost people at sea, because the communication
factor of this public address
system is paramount,” he said. ▲
Oregon Wing Part
of SAR Task Force
A member of the U.S. Civil Air Patrol’s Oregon Wing is serving
on a search and rescue task force recently created by Gov. Ted
Kulongoski to assess the need for changes in search and rescue
procedures for the lost and stranded.
According to a news release from the governor’s office,
Kulongoski officially ordered creation of the task force “to decide
whether to amend state laws, administrative
rules and related policies to ensure proper
coordination, communication and effective
pooling of resources between federal, state
and local authorities in search and rescue
operations.”
Maj. David Rudawitz, emergency services
officer for the Oregon Wing, was invited by
Maj. David Rudawitz
Kulongoski to serve on the task force alongside
more than a dozen other officials and
community members, including lawmakers,
emergency management officials and police
and sheriff’s department officers.
“I think it was important CAP was
involved on the task force," said Rudawitz.
“The governor indicated agencies that
Gov. Ted Kulongoski
participated would be invited to be members
of a permanent state-level search and rescue
policy commission, which was one of the recommendations of the
task force.”
“That means that in the state of Oregon, Civil Air Patrol is
being viewed as an equal agency with the sheriff’s departments and
other state and federal agencies that are involved with search and
rescue here,” he said.
For Rudawitz, being part of the task force was especially
meaningful.
“This was probably the most exciting thing I’ve been involved
in, and I’ve been in CAP since 1976,” he said.
"It was an opportunity to be recognized and make a contribution
at a very high level, so it was very exciting to be involved.”
Civil Air Patrol Volunteer 23 May-June 2007