Private Search Party for missing bushwalker Mt Koscuiskzo

[perfectlydark]

I dont get the impression the family actually gives a damn about anyone assisting in the search tbh. Just another tool to get what they want and someone elses problem if something bad happens.
my 2c

[wayno]

possibly because they are buying peoples time they may think they don't have any further responsibility to their safety, hence deleting the post about insurance

[perfectlydark]

Also correct me if im wrong but they havnt even come back here since the original post? Just casting as large a net as possible it seems without any form of central control or care who is willing to assist (as long as people are out there)

[wayno]

they made four posts on the day they created the thread... on may 28th and then made no further posts.
this was the last one.

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=13608&p=179571#p179571

[Nuts]

Also correct me if im wrong but they havnt even come back here since the original post? Just casting as large a net as possible it seems without any form of central control or care who is willing to assist (as long as people are out there)

No they could have been back every day.
I haven't kept up with this, is there any evidence that they don't have someone experienced vetting or organising searchers.

[wayno]

their last date visited status is showing which means they havent hidden when they were last on the site
their last visit shows as may 29th

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=8015

[photohiker]

possibly because they are buying peoples time they may think they don't have any further responsibility to their safety, hence deleting the post about insurance

Maybe, but wasn't the last call asking for volunteers?

I haven't read many of the searcher reports, but I have yet to read about people saying they were paid. Maybe they stopped paying after the initial rush?

In any case, now that the weather has turned and they are asking for volunteers, I think it's time the cops went down there and informed them of their responsibilities. It's gone from slightly (but forgiveable) crazy to totally loony.

Come back when the snow melts.

[Nuts]

maybe. maybe they plan to be ready for a break in the weather? It's a noble thing to be concerned about others, maybe someone experienced should volunteer for a few days so 'we' don't have to keep on making assumptions.

The 'last visited' log shows the last login Wayno, anyone can read the forum as an unlogged guest.

[wayno]

either way theres no sign of them showing any sign of wanting to make any further input into this forum, you'd think if they were taking the time to read the forum they would have something further to say, htey are sensitive enough to delete posts on their facebook site they dont want there. but they havent reponded here and i'm assuming havent reported any of the posts to the thread.

[colinm]

This is a coordinated social media campaign leveraging the coordinated efforts of the Canadian (and international) Sikh community. Its goal is to get warm bodies on the ground, because the people behind it think that a search is like an enormous emu parade, and if the population of Australia would just join hands and start looking, their goal would be accomplished.

Angad Dev Singh Grewal And those that cant cant physically go and search, there still are ways of participating. Please spread the news, make more people aware of it. Call ur relatives and friends in Australia and see if they can help in any way. Try contacting your local mps and see if they can help. Youz that love youtube, check if there are any videos that have recently been posted by someone hiking out there. And most importantly PRAY!

Randy Bains ‏@raaaaaaaandy14 9 Jun Please help make this poster go viral. Rt or better yet tweet it yourself #prabhstrong #PrabhSrawn pic.twitter.com/KOKbo4VrUK

Note the emphasis on roping in the clueless ('call your relatives', 'make this go viral') and in particular trying to exert political pressure ('contact your local MP'.)

Bushwalk Australia doesn't form a large part of that campaign. Perhaps its population is too analytical. Someone from the family, or associated with it, may be monitoring here, but not wanting to engage in response to the criticism. Ok. This discussion lead to the discovery that they're making a bit of a mess of the high country, and that has lead to them being aware of the need to modify their behaviour. That's good. It's not something which could have occurred via FB or Twitter.

As to the skill of coordination ... leaving aside the futility of the exercise ... this from the coordinator (missing person's brother in law):

the distinction between alpine and non-alpine terrain in this regard is meant with consideration to slope of the terrain, and not snowfall.

and

This is a dense bush area, but no snow in this area, the temperatures in this area are above freezing.

... this for the Geehi valley, I believe. Note forecast on the day the call was psted of 20% probability of snow below 1000m on Saturday. Note, also, that the coordinator mistakes the first derivative of altitude as defining 'alpine,' where any definition I've read uses altitude, as an analogue for local climate.

And then there's the recent call for search volunteers with the implication that minimally skilled, minimally equipped people should consider joining it.

No insurance for the searchers, as far as I can ascertain, nor do the family want any mention of insurance in the post used to publicise the call for minimally skilled and equipped volunteers.

Most likely they'll achieve nothing, and nobody will get hurt (there are only 6 people searching at the moment, I suppose the Canadian army guys went home.) Most likely. I see no evidence that the coordinators and motivators care one way or the other about people getting hurt. I don't think that's right, and I think it should be actively (but gently) discouraged.

My assessment is that the people behind the search would be happy to walk the entire way on the prone forms of search volunteers, if it could guarantee them the attainment of their goal, and that they are foolish enough to think that it just might, and they are prepared to use and countenance any tactic they think might work to bring about that state of affairs: moral suasion, emotional manipulation, public shaming, accusations of racism, religious fervour, dissuasion of critical analysis, misleading statements, you name it.

[matagi]

what precisely are you suggesting should be done by the "experienced people" here?

Think outside the square...If people want to talk it over, at least take the time to look through the information available in this very thread before shooting off.
Talk over some more scenarios about weather conditions at the time, wind direction, last mobile ping, where would you go and what would you do if in the same situation. Create some questions worth chewing over.

But to what purpose? The bottom line is - the guy is dead. Are you suggesting all stops should be pulled out to recover a corpse? It does not make sense to put people at risk for that purpose and quite honestly, I fail to see the imperative. Better to wait until the melt and then seek the opinions of those in the know as to where search efforts should be directed.

[colinm]

http://youtu.be/7VnYnSLtsl8 entitled "Searching for Prabh" 9-12 of July 2013 has a lot of arsing about / glissading. I also question the need for so many machetes (0:13) but I guess if you're collecting that much firewood (3:36) they'd be useful.

I note, too, that one of the people in that video was also in the previous video, the one which was comprehensively determined not to be a video about the search. That person is the publisher of this video.

One suggestive link to the family search is the video's title. Other suggestive evidence is the machetes (3 identical machetes, 2 hikers,) the quantity of provisions (too much for 2 guys) and the layout and identity of the motel rooms.

[Strider]

Are parks aware of the damage these guys are causing!?

[Onestepmore]

When i saw this a couple of days ago I made a comment on their website that fires weren't permitted above the treeline in KNP and it was fuel stove area only. Their impact on the landscape will remain for decades.

[Strider]

I have been informed via PM that their damaging activities have been reported...

[Overlandman]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-20/s ... ff/4832812

A search by family members for a missing Canadian hiker has been called off in the Snowy Mountains as the weather deteriorates.
Prabhdeep Srawn, 25, has been missing for almost three months after he drove to Charlotte Pass Village to go bushwalking to Mount Kosciuszko on May 13.
The official police search was called off at the end of May after extensive land and air searches failed to find any trace of the Canadian Army reservist.
Volunteers had been helping family members search isolated mountain areas but have decided to end the search during the snow season.

In June, 11 full-time members of the Canadian army searched for two weeks for their missing colleague.

Earlier Mr Srawn's family had offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who found him.
At that time family member Tej Sahota said they had not given up hope of finding Mr Srawn.
"We maintain some evidence has to turn up. He just can't disappear into thin air. That's physically impossible," he said.
"There has to be some evidence of him on that mountain. Our conviction tells us that he's going to be alive, but we're looking for some sort of evidence ... until we get that evidence, we're not going to quit on this."
Mr Srawn's mobile service provider found the last signal from his phone was sent from the west face of Mount Townsend

[wayno]

their conviction tells them he is going to be alive.....
well that says it all on how realistic they are after all this time... hands up anyone else who says he is still alive...

[matagi]

their conviction tells them he is going to be alive.....
well that says it all on how realistic they are after all this time... hands up anyone else who says he is still alive...

I he is, then I doubt he is anywhere near Mt Kosciuszko.

[colinm]

their conviction tells them he is going to be alive.....
well that says it all on how realistic they are after all this time... hands up anyone else who says he is still alive...

I he is, then I doubt he is anywhere near Mt Kosciuszko.

Yeah. To be accurate, though, the article quotes that guff from a time very close to the beginning of the search. It's a bit misleading the way it's written. I imagine the authors didn't have much more than a statement that the search is over. The family members are talking about coming back in September, maybe they will. Hope they take care.

I guess now the family have accepted what's occurred, they can get on with grieving. That's the best they can do, and it's enough.

[wayno]

or they were running out of money and or searchers

[SteveJ]

Empathy, sympathy and compassion are qualities sadly lacking in many of the posts here. If this poor bloke was my brother or dear friend I would hope for miracles too. Judicious armchair assessments by noisy spectators is typical of the thoughtless diatribe on forums nowadays, we are talking about a grieving family hoping for a miracle, we are talking about the loss of this boys life, show some humanity .

[wayno]

the family have chosen to enter the public domain in conducting their search and harshly criticisising the authorities who won't argue back
search and rescue can be a thankless job, especially in this case when you dont find the missing person and the family turns on you when you have to call the operation off.
search and rescue is pretty removed from bushwalking actually, its not relaxing, you have to be focused on what your doing, constantly looking for something that is a clue to the person/people you are looking for, you have to scour every bit of ground you walkover with your eyes, and sometimes with your hands rummaging through undergrowth or scrub... and at this time of year you're working in the worst the elements can throw at you, you're often off track on rough ankle turning ground, you often sleep rough, you are often going without pay from your regular job while you do all this...
the amount of detail SAR goes into to research and find missing people is amazing, they will try and itemise every single item of gear and food the person has, if any of those items is found then they have something to go on, i've even heard of human scat being analysed to check if it could have the food the missing person could have been eating.
have a read of this, its a sar manual.. its 240 pages and whats is given to TRAINED SAR participants...

http://natsar.amsa.gov.au/Manuals/Searc ... ue_Manual/

on top of what is in the manual there are all the extra bushcraft skills the sar people need to know to operate effectively and safely
heres another 300 page manual. that goes into more skils the ground sar teams require

http://www.jibc.ca/sites/default/files/ ... Manual.pdf

a great deal of time effort and organisation goes into training offical SAR participants
how much training have the current searchers received?

and then the family of the person you are looking for turn around and rubbish your efforts acting like they know better and decide that they can find the missing person without your help despite the fact that SAR are highly trained and highly experienced and highly dedicated.

theres a lot of people on this forum who won't shy away from saying what they think about what has happened, the criticism may seem harsh.
but the family have been harsh in their public communication, and some people on here will see fit to analyse that and pass comment and there is some truth at least in what has been said.

[photohiker]

Judicious armchair assessments by noisy spectators is typical of the thoughtless diatribe on forums nowadays,

Quoted for Irony.

[colinm]

Empathy, sympathy and compassion are qualities sadly lacking in many of the posts here. If this poor bloke was my brother or dear friend I would hope for miracles too. Judicious armchair assessments by noisy spectators is typical of the thoughtless diatribe on forums nowadays, we are talking about a grieving family hoping for a miracle, we are talking about the loss of this boys life, show some humanity .

Appeals to humanity, empathy, sympathy and compassion? You forgot "what about the children," "un-Australian," "what would Jesus do," and "I'm telling Alan Jones!"

You would be free to hope for miracles. I would not sympathise with your social media campaign to drum up sacrificial victims to bring those miracles about.

[Nuts]

But people can take responsibility for themselves. Nobody really answered my earlier question, TBH I'm not that interested- it's over for now &talk is cheap. I agree with Steve on this.

[colinm]

Some people can take responsibility for themselves, but others' ability to do so is lessened by misleading statements, cynical cheap emotional manipulation, and moral censure masked as a higher morality - that is why advertisers, demagogues and politicians all have resort to these.

[Nuts]

But they have obviously been desperate. What is needed, a set of practical guidelines for grieving?

I doubt that there will be dramatic arrests of searching families, if they choose to keep on looking then they probably need some form of extended support.

[colinm]

But they have obviously been desperate. What is needed, a set of practical guidelines for grieving?

Something derived from this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model ... maybe they were stuck in denial and bargaining, having expressed anger at the failure of the official search.

I doubt that there will be dramatic arrests of searching families, if they choose to keep on looking then they probably need some form of extended support.

Nobody's suggested anything like arrests.

I observed some 'support' which seemed to me to be opportunistic, seemed to me exploitative of their grief. Was that helping? There's a movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_in_the_Hole_(film) of which I was reminded by what I saw.

What would have helped? Some counselling early in the piece may have helped. I suspect that if the family had been locals, someone from their faith group may have been able to help them. All I saw was mendacious and ignorant encouragement in a folly. What I didn't see was anyone with both the balls and standing to tell them how it was, or anyone with their interests at heart to help them on their way (self included in that.)

[Nuts]

I saw the discussion here, the facebook comments and followed a link to the Canadian site.

mendacious I have never heard that term, thanks!

I doubt that there will be dramatic arrests of searching families, if they choose to keep on looking then they probably need some form of extended support.

Anyhow- No, at the end of the day.. everything exhausted.. I just can't imagine a scenario for police- given a group still out searching beyond the allocated time.

Perhaps I should have left it as: 'I can relate to what steve is saying' (and Darren earlier).

[colinm]

Off again on again.

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/07/20/se ... ns-reports
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/07/21/fa ... s-still-on

Ignorant Canadians are still posting that he could be alive. Even I am pretty much over it.