I came across the story below and couldn’t believe that I had never thought about this. I have used QR codes for several things and it is a great idea to put them on missing persons posters. 

What is a QR Code? They come to us from Japan where they are very common. QR is short for Quick Response (they can be read quickly by a cell phone). They are used to take a piece of information from a transitory media and put it in to your cell phone. To read the QR code you will need to download a free app on your smart phone. I have seen QR codes in magazines, at the grocery store, on company logos. You can use them for anything you want.

Scan the QR Code to see a sample of what you would see if you scanned the QR code on a missing persons poster. You are giving the person the ability to take the missing persons poster with them. They can now easily share it on their social media site or send to friends. QR codes are just another tool that we have to spread information.  

 Child Quest International has been working with uQR.me to create sites and QR codes for missing children. An example is the Sierra Lamar search in California. Thousands of missing persons posters have been posted with QR codes on them. They have even incorporated the subjects picture in the middle of the code.  

 

QR codes newest tool to aid in search for missing children

Say you’re sitting in a Starbucks and see a teenager who looks just like that picture on the missing-child poster you scanned with your smartphone in Safeway two weeks ago.

But you’re not sure, so you whip out your phone and check.

Bingo. It’s the girl. You click on the highlighted hotline number, which immediately connects you to the police, who arrive in two minutes flat.

Forget those old forlorn photos on milk cartons. The latest big thing in the search for missing children are “QR codes,” a bar-code-like “quick response” technology that puts missing-kid posters in thousands of people’s purses and pockets. After Facebook and Twitter, the codes are the latest tools in the tech and social media box aimed at finding kids who vanish.

The day after 15-year-old Sierra LaMar disappeared on her way to her Morgan Hill bus stop three weeks ago, a Santa Clara County sheriff’s sergeant called San Jose-based Child Quest International, suggesting that a QR code be put on Sierra’s missing fliers.

Her friends and family also have been tweeting about candlelight vigils, Facebooking a variety of photos and videos of her and using social media to express sympathy and reach out to volunteer searchers.

Earlier this week, the KlaasKids Foundation encouraged people to swap their Facebook profile pictures with those of Sierra to keep her image in the spotlight in what they called an “online vigil.” And volunteers have plastered her missing poster — complete with QR codes — across Northern California.

“The problem is educating the community on what a QR code is,” said Child Quest’s Anthony Gonzalez. “People who know about it rave about it. Others have never seen it and wonder, “What is this thing on the poster?’ ”

QR codes are printed squares of jumbled black lines and squiggles. When a smartphone equipped with a free QR code app points the phone’s camera at the image, it links directly to a website with more photos of the missing child, information and hotline phone numbers. (Haven’t seen a missing poster with the QR code? Aim your phone at Sierra’s QR code printed next to this story, or go to http://uqr.me/missing-sierra-lamar and snap a photo of the computer screen!)

“It essentially makes the missing poster portable,” said Stephen Watkins, a Toronto man who works with Child Quest and modified QR codes that were first developed by Toyota to track car parts.

The idea came to him, he said, when he was at a Walmart and noticed customers passing missing posters, glancing briefly and moving on. He is using QR codes and other social media to continue his search for his own two sons, who in 2009 were taken to Poland by their mother.

To humanize the QR code, like he did with his sons’ and Sierra’s, he embeds a photograph of the missing child.

Technology has come a long way since the milk carton campaign in the 1980s, devised by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That campaign lasted six months and — despite becoming part of the pop culture of the time — was considered a failure, said the center’s Bob Lowery.

“People weren’t really paying attention to the images on the milk cartoons,” he said. “The only ones paying attention were younger children enjoying their cereal.”

When the center opened in 1984, it had a recovery rate of 62 percent for missing children. Now, nearly three decades later, that rate is 98 percent. “It’s because of better awareness of missing children and also our ability to connect through social media, Amber alerts and all the tools we have,” Lowery said.

Even as media interest fades, Sierra’s family and supporters can continue to tweet and retweet and add sympathetic friends to their Facebook accounts to keep the story going. After three weeks, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department is still staffing its emergency operations center around the clock, staffing tip lines, putting GPS devices on their searchers, and keeping tabs on Sierra’s so-far-dormant Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Robert McConnell, a computer programmer from Macedonia, Ohio, credits Facebook with getting him closer to finding his daughter. Even though he had full custody, he said, his daughter’s mother took her to her native Indonesia and never came back.

“I thought my only avenue might be trying to get as many friends as I could in Indonesia on Facebook,” he said. “I posted my daughter’s pictures and everything and sure enough, about a year ago, I was contacted by a woman who knew her.”

But the trail went cold when the mother and daughter, Bianca Damanik, 9, moved to somewhere near Jakarta.

But McConnell isn’t giving up.

“I’m just hoping when she gets old enough,” he said, “she’ll go out and try to find me.”

http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_20331177/qr-codes-newest-tool-aid-search-missing-children

 When I first saw this headline “Drunken hiker asks for rescue” I couldn’t help but think about the people that put their life on the line to rescue him. It made me think about all the despondent searches that teams go on and how selfish the subjects are. After thinking about it I started to think about the real victims in those types of searches, the families. The family needs to always be in your mind. Even if the subject goes out in the woods and commits suicide, the family still deserves the right to bury their loved one.
I would recommend having a family liaison officer (FLO) as part of your command staff. This person can spend time with the family and get to know them. The family will feel more conformable sharing information with this person. All communications that you have with the family should go through the FLO

An intoxicated 45-year-old Flagstaff man called 9-1-1 on Sunday afternoon and said he became lost hiking Mount Elden, hurt his ankle and thought he was being stalked by wild animals.

According to information from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, the man called repeatedly and disconnected the call each time. Search and Rescue volunteers and deputies were sent to the area to look for him.

When the man eventually described his surroundings to a lieutenant, he said he was on a dirt trail and about 100 yards from a house with its porch lights on. The officer told the man to walk toward the house to ask for help. In the process of walking to the home, he came out at the intersection of Schaffer Lane and Adrianne Way, where officers found him.

He was taken to the Flagstaff Medical Center for minor injuries and a non-life-threatening medical condition.

The Sheriff’s office said alcohol played a major role in the incident.

Read more: http://azdailysun.com/news/local/drunken-hiker-asks-for-rescue/article_5d2aeb7c-3607-58ee-99b7-96f8cb295248.html#ixzz1qSQGZvlp

They are really having some issues up there.

Source - Andrew Nemethy - 

A panel of lawmakers Wednesday learned the ins and outs and complexities of search and rescue operations in a sometimes emotional hearing as it considers legislation on how Vermont should respond to such emergencies.

The state’s top state police officers and game wardens all crammed into the tiny House Government Operations Committee room, for a hearing brought about by the tragic death Jan. 9 of a missing hiker in Ripton. The search for Levi Duclos, 19, was not begun by Vermont State Police until 14 hours after he was reported missing on a cold winter night. He died of apparent hypothermia, though it was initially reported he had a broken leg.

The delay in initiating a search has prompted soul-searching at the state police and a change in protocol that formalizes calls to experienced search and rescue groups outside the state police, who were not called in when Duclos was reported missing at 8 p.m.

Lawmakers are taking a broader look at the entire system of state response and all the agencies that are – or should be – involved and how to prevent such incidents in the future. But concerns about Duclos’ death appeared to be still fresh, sparking some emotional outbursts.

A suggestion by Col. Dave LeCours, director of law enforcement for Vermont’s game wardens, that it pays to “hold back” resources as a situation unfolds or to manage stamina for an extended search drew a brisk response.

“If it were my child that was missing and I was told they were holding back, I’d go ballistic,” said Rep. Anne Mook, D-Bennington.

Rep. Robert Lewis, R-Orleans, a former state trooper and game warden, told lawmakers, “We’ve got to be careful about who we get in to help,” saying that inexperienced searchers can get injured, lost or mess up a crime scene.

“One of the biggest concerns is physical conditioning. You don’t want people (searching) to become a victim,” he said, calling volunteer help sometimes a “loose cannon.”

Rep. Willem Jewett, who hails from Ripton where Duclos died, bluntly called that point of view “backsliding” and said the state needed to open up its search system to pull in all volunteers who can help.

“If you put all these impediments in front of them they won’t do it,” he said.

Beyond the issue of who should participate in searches is the issue of who should oversee them. The panel Wednesday heard a consistent message that state police should remain the lead agency.

The state’s top officers and game wardens cited the need for a unified command to organize a search, keep communications open and make decisions to send in canines and shift a search to a crime investigation from a missing person search, which can sometimes happen. That makes the state police the best choice, they said.

“They have the manpower and resources to consolidate a search effort,” said LeCours. While game wardens are familiar with the back country and are trained in first aid, he said the small number of field officers and staff – at the max, 50 if everyone is “mustered in” – precludes his department from taking a lead role.

Game Warden Major Dennis Reinhardt seconded that view.

“I think it would be irresponsible of us to take the lead at this point,” he said. Not only is his force down to 27 field game wardens, but statute calls for state police to be the lead agency. He said the idea of shifting responsibility has currency because some states successfully use game wardens for the search and rescue role.

Duclos’ aunt, Kathy Duclos, has publicly criticized the state police response and urged state officials to set up another agency as lead in search operations. In Maine and New Hampshire, game wardens are charged with that response but in Vermont, state police have that role.
LeCours said searches are complex and varied, ranging from ones that could be a crime or accident, such as a missing toddler, or an Alzheimer’s patient who wanders off – “people that don’t even know they’re lost,” he said. State police are better suited for that variety of situations, he said.

Jewett said, in his view, timing is everything. “Delay leads to bad outcomes,” he said. Col. Tom L’Esperance of the state police told lawmakers, “We recognize we can do things better” and said he agreed that when it comes to searches, “It should be one call to 9-1-1 and everything’s delivered.”

“There is nothing we don’t agree with,” L’Esperance said, in the panel’s efforts to try to put into legislation a protocol for search and rescue. A bill being drafted by the committee calls for an interim protocol by September 2012 from the Department of Public Safety and also a study committee to look at procedures in Vermont.

Still, L’Esperance, like LeCours, pointed out the complexity of issues and nuances that can be raised by searches, such as whether it’s a missing person and a potential crime, or a missing hiker or skier.

“Yet it’s hard to determine on a 9-1-1 call what’s the difference,” he said.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Come up with a solution,’” he said, but he urged the panel to keep state police in the oversight command role because of their broad expertise.

The state police have 17 search and rescue command officers who are trained to oversee a response and organize a search, he said, and their skills are critical in oversight. Since the Duclos tragedy, state police have begun working on a database of other expert agencies and people with specialized rescue skills such as Stowe Mountain Rescue and Colchester Rescue, or sheriffs or local agencies that want to be involved, he said.

Jewett said he felt that data base was a “key” part of an effort to coordinate a prompt response when a search or rescue call arises.

State police Capt. Rob Evans, who oversees the force’s nine specialized units, said state police keep tabs on officers training and expertise and nine of the 17 search and rescue commanders are certified by a national association of search and rescue.

Evans related a recent search for a missing 5-year-old in Underhill who eventually emerged unscathed 50 minutes later from the woods and was picked up by a neighbor. Numerous agencies were called in, he said, including local fire and police and a command post was started and a helicopter was being sought to assist.

He said state police have “great working relationships” with outside organizations. “Every search incident is unique,” he said, adding sometimes “pulling the trigger early” works and other times more information is beneficial.

In response to a pointed question from Rep. Michel Consejo, D-Sheldon, Evans said the state police never consider the cost of a search in making a decision.

“If lives are at stake, the rescue will roll,” he said. He added that his experience over the last six to eight years is that it pays to push for a concerted early response.

“We’ve found that it’s more effective to put the money up front,” he said.

L’Esperance, who said he has “thought long and hard since the (Duclos) incident took place,” wondered if some “local home cooking” of community-based policing was lost when the state regionalized dispatching for state police. While that is efficient and “the right thing to do,” the state police now need to make sure dispatch and command officers know about local resources and how to call them in to help, he said.

Committee Chairwoman Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, said one good thing that can come out of the tragedy is that Vermont can become “a leader in search management and theory,” as well as looking at other state’s that have good models to follow.

Reinhardt agreed, saying a “hybridization” of what works in other states may prove a good model for the state.

“Vermont is so small, we will continue to work together,” he said