ALBERTA, CANADA - Bev Sliger is President of Red Deer Search and Rescue, a non-profit organization founded in June of 1996 by a group of Candian outdoor enthusiasts an another of our Amazing People.

All members have the desire to contribute their skills for the benefit of those who have become lost or missing. Working in partnership with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other volunteer search and rescue organizations in Alberta, the Team is ready to provide their volunteer services anywhere and at anytime.

We spoke with Bev, about how Red Deer use Decisions For Heroes (D4H):

Talking about meeting requirements.

"Red Deer Search and Rescue has looked for years for a program that met all of our administrative needs. How to track searchers, training, search event and the like. We have spent thousands of dollars in this venture. Then along comes Decisions for Heroes and it is perfect. The program performs very well and meets all our needs."

On customer service and engagement.

"Should we have a question or want to make a decisions we simply contact them and it is taken care of as fast as possible. We are very impressed by this technology. Also, it puts us in contact with search teams from all over the world by simply turning on the computer. It is an amazing company and we are very proud to have been one of the first in Canada to access it. Excellent job."

All members of Red Deer SAR take the Emergency Response Institute SAR Basic Skills Course as provided for by SAR Alberta. This 60-hour course is a standardized course covering search theory, the incident command system and basic survival. The Fundamentals course culminates in a multi-hour night search. Members also take an eight-hour navigation course together with Standard First Aid and Level B CPR.

Members of the Team can take training throughout the year with the Team. Participation in training exercises is essential to maintaining skill levels. After the basics, all members are encouraged to take such additional training as they see necessary. Some of the courses that can be arranged include mantracking, high-angle rescue and GPS proficiency. The Team encourages any member to learn those skills that are of interest to the member and may be of assistance in an emergency. Membership is between 50-70 people at all times and we are always on the lookout for potential searchers.

Red Deer's Technical Rescue/US&R Task Force component of the team specializes in High Angle, Confined Space, Collapsed Structure, and Swift Water Rescue. These highly skilled members continually train to maintain and upgrade their skills.

DUBLIN, IRELAND - Hello from Head Quarters. We've just shipped the latest version (Spring 2010 Release) of Decisions For Heroes to all team accounts. User accounts are automatically upgraded.

Keep an eye on this blog and Facebook as we're going to feature a New Build Feature listed below every day with a how-to guide and video so you get the most from your account.

Here's a list of what's new - see if you can find them all!

New Builds

• Qualifications now have built in expectation management.


• Search dog and mounted units can now mark qualifications against animals (e.g. certificates and licenses).


• Animal handlers can now have qualfications linked to a specific animal.


• Animal and handler operational availability is tracked when both are compliant and operational.


• Full qualification history records.


• New global mapping system (Microsoft Bing Maps) giving good imagery.


• Addresses are geocoded so you can type in a street address to calculate automatic marker position and latitude longitude.


• Activities are now reverse geocoded to an address when you move a marker, we'll work out the street address.


• Mapping clusters let you analyse hotspots of incidents. Interpret a lot of geographical data quickly.


• Real-time collaboration now includes threaded conversation and the ablity to vote up/down ideas.


• Discussions can be categorized as lessons learnt, proposals, comments, and questions.


• Get notified by email when someone replies to your thread. Mute conversations you've had enough of.


• A daily digest email is sent out to all members giving an overview of active discussions in last 24 hours.


• We've launched our widget server in [Team Settings] where you can show a public view of your incidents with a custom sponsor message.


• We look at what you've recently done, and have scheduled and suggest things to collaborate over.


• Timestamps on incidents now dynamically adapt for the standdown time depending on your selection.


• Weekly Briefings check for compliance across every hour of the week, not just now.

Enhancements:

• New members are requested to attend all future full-team events automatically on joining team.


• If you are sent a link to a specific page, you will be redirected there after sign-in.


• Calendars and User Interface upgraded from YUI to JQuery. Date pickers have better inter-year support.


• Time inputs allow for keystrokes up down left right to change time field.


• New validation scripts check inputs are correct before submission.


• New User Interface with better colour coding for less text.


• Chat box on dashboard shows only unread latest posts.


• Notes may be added to qualifications to explain it to members.


• In team settings the account owner may choose the default map type (Satellite Imagery or Street Map).


• Qualifications may have a default expiry length of time.


• Table headers float and scroll with the page for large volumes of data.


• Event icons have changed to purple as grey was confusing users with status level.


• When filling out a form, users are prompted if leaving the page will loose data.


• Email and SMS for activity attendance and groups have been added on the sidebar.


• Datatables plug-in allows for site-wide table sorting.


• Tags and resources analytics now show as % of activity type rather than count.


• OS Grid Refs are now stored in the database rather than being dynamically computed on page load.

Picture the scene - you've been keeping incident records for years. You've carefully recorded a latitude and longitude for each, as one day you know that will be useful. That day has come.

All Decisions For Heroes accounts and free trials have been automatically upgraded to include incident cluster mapping to provide easy to understand geographic distribution and analysis of your responses.



As you zoom in and out on an interactive map - we automatically cluster and count incidents in each area on the map to determine hotspots and observe where the greatest impact on lives saved can be achieved through preventitive techniques. You can quickly gain an unprecidented overview of how much happened where.

Plot your training exercises and other events against your incidents and decide if you are training in locations that simulate your incidents or if your safety awareness and prevention is correctly distributed.



To try Cluster Mapping with your teams data - sign-in to your account or sign-up now for free.

We supply premium global street maps and aerial imagery from Bing maps by Microsoft.

DUBLIN, IRELAND (31st March 2010) - The wailing sound of emergency services sirens will soon be a sound of the past thanks to a rescue technology firm based in Ireland. Tomorrow morning, at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, Decisions For Heroes will launch a new product, TIME-WARP. The company specialises in the automated analysis of incident and causalty records and Director Robin Blandford believes TIME-WARP marks not only the end of sirens, but also that of pagers and other personal reactive alerting devices worn by responders.

TIME-WARP enables responders to be rostered on-call, available at the most likely time for an incident to occur. Using geographic and hour-on-hour distribution analysis on a segment of historic data, the software is able to notify responders prior to an upcoming incident.

With no sirens required, responders may drive safely in advance to the scene of the incident. They can be ready waiting in their vehicle up to 90 minutes before and within 45ft of the location of the accident that they will later respond to. "Not only will teams save more lives, but TIME-WARP saves your time too" explains Blandford. He continues, "If TIME-WARP tells you no incident will happen that afternoon, then you can send your team home early - no cover needed".

Commander Joe Kerr's team, United Nations Rescue & Emergency Aid, London, undertook early system trials, "4pm on a Sunday at 52 34.2N, 6 34.23W; that's our spot. It was so accurate that last week we took the light bars off the vehicles - we just weren't using them anymore". Commander Kerr's team responded to 123 of 82 emergencies before they even happened.