Before the Search: The Briefing Room | SAR Series Fall 2026
Article 5 of 7
Search and rescue teams go out hoping to bring a person home alive. Sometimes they find a deceased person instead. That moment is emotionally difficult, and it changes the work around the location.
The first obligation is to follow the operation’s emergency procedures and the direction of the responsible authorities. Once immediate life safety questions are addressed, the surroundings may need to be protected as a potential death scene. The manner of death is not decided by how the location initially looks. Accident, suicide, homicide, and natural death are conclusions reached through investigation, not labels assigned from a trail.
Searchers can contribute information no later photograph can recreate. Who approached from which direction? What was visible before anyone crossed the area? Were objects moved for access, safety, or care? Were there tracks, disturbed vegetation, water effects, animal activity, or other conditions likely to change? Accurate observations should be recorded promptly and attributed to the person who made them.
Equally important is knowing the limit of those observations. A footwear impression near a body is not automatically an offender’s print. A position that looks unusual is not automatically staged. A searcher who reports what they saw, where they stood, and what they did gives investigators something they can test.
Unnecessary movement and a crowd around the location can erase details. Teams should communicate the location through the established command structure and follow instructions on access, documentation, and withdrawal. Those instructions may differ by jurisdiction and circumstance.
We prepare for this transition because it is too late to invent a process while people are standing at a scene. Search skills, forensic awareness, and respectful care for the person found belong in the same conversation towards getting results for the victim.
Series note: This article is part of Before the Search, our series leading up to the inaugural search and rescue class in LPA’s Mounted Forensic Operations System (MFOS) program. The NASAR Search & Rescue Academy will be held at the Laura Pettler & Associates International Forensics Institute at Crossroads Ranch in Monroe, North Carolina, November 15–22, 2026.
