"You did good out there"

Sixteen years ago, with less than eleven months under his belt as a Rhode Island State Trooper, Matt Zarella became frustrated with the state police's search and rescue tactics. So the former marine paid, out of his own pocket, thousands of dollars to be trained as a K9 search and rescue technichan. His teacher was a former Connecticut State Trooper who could be called the father of K9 SAR in America.
Zarella known affectionately as "the dog guy" to emergency workers all over New England turned a one man unit( often looked on as a waste of time and energy by his contemporaries) into a Rhode Island institution. Zarella and his dogs have been contracted for searches all over the world. From Vietnam to Maine he's worked searching for corpses, lost children, murder victimsm everyone who's ever been misplaced.
I can remember my father telling me stories about Zarella. My dad thinks this guy is one of the ultimate badasses. Six foot something, my father used to say, towering over everyone. We'd watch him and his dog Hannibal, a massive Swissy who detested water putter around on a zodiac sniffing for submerged bodies. Hell, my dad probably knows his past cases better than the trooper himself.
After hearing so much about the dog guy, I was thrilled when I was offered the chance to take one of his SAR classes. Search and rescue is an activity primarily performed by law enforcement. Their search and investigatory mentality is better suited for finding missing people who have the potential to be crime victims. Even so, my class had a good share of fellow firefighters and EMTs.
The first day of class was a collection of lectures and videos to familarize us with the meat and potatoes of search and rescue. This is also considered a pre cursor to K9 SAR as all K9 handlers need this course to do search and rescue. We learned how to do long line searches which is basically strining a group of people along at spaced intervals and checking entire patches of wildereness. We learned how to deal with the press and set up a propper command post. Crime scene techniques were also taught as most searches can become criminal investigations.
The second day was a massive practical exercise in which we put all of our training to use. According to the senario a family of four was lost in the woods and two known felons were on the loose, it was believed that they had run into each other.
Dummies and articles of clothing were strewn about the grounds of a National Gaurd training facility and we were sent out to do our thing. Signs warned us to avoid certain areas containing unexploded ordinance.
The search was progressing fairly well about two hours into the excerise. We had found the father and evacuated him for medical aid. My team stumbled across his wife, she had been raped and shot in the head, confirming that they had run in with the felons. Shortly after their oldest child was found strangled under a makeshift tombstone. We had two really sick bastards on our hands, Zarella based them on actual cases he and his dogs had worked around America.
The highlight of the day was when I called "Hold the line!" The signal to stop the forward movement of the search. A mound of leaves off to my left didn't look right, I honestly can't tell you why but it looked wrong. When I poked my stick in it, I found a dummy wearing a pink dress. The family's youngest member was found. She had severe dehydration, the felons had tried to bury her alive rather than deal with her.
After our little exercise concluded, Zarella took me aside. The number one search and rescue guy on the east coast told me. "You should be very proud to have found that dummy. That was the hardest one I hid out there, it wouldn't have been easy to find her with a dog, but you did it. You did good our there."