GATC SAR

GATC Search & Rescue

The Georgia Appalachian Trail Club (GATC) Search & Rescue team is a group of club members who have chosen to learn and practice the art of Wilderness Search & Rescue. Our members have varied backgrounds, some ex-military, some have been members of other volunteer SAR teams and some with no prior experience before joining the team. The one thing that binds the group is a willingness to learn the hard skills in SAR and be willing to help those in need.

Our team never self deploys, meaning we don’t just show up at a search. We only respond after being asked by the authority having jurisdiction, which is normally a local Sheriff or Fire Department.

Some of our member are NASAR SARTECH II certified and some of our team have completed formal multi-day training in managing the lost person incident (For us, that primarily means we understand the search process and tasking often given to ground teams). Our team does regular field training to practice skills such as Land Navigation (Day & Night), Wilderness First Aid, Search Tactics, Field Communications, Survival Skills to name a few.

Our team also provides training within the GATC and are more than willing to do joint training with other teams (both conducting the class to simply participating as a group as part of another teams training event). We have a special love for Land Navigation :-)

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