Video: SRASU Rescue 3 and Spokane County Sheriff’s Office K9 Unit Hoist Training
Last week, Spokane Regional Air Support Unit (SRASU) Rescue 3 Flight Crews held a training day to work with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office K9 Unit. SRASU works periodically with the K9 Unit to ensure the K9’s become accustomed to the helicopters in a training environment avoiding the distraction when the need to deploy them to a scene by air arises.
With the new hoisting capabilities of Rescue 3, the K9 Unit purchased a K9 harness which allows the K9, and their human partner, to be lowered safely from Rescue 3 to the ground or retrieved from a scene. The capability to transport K9 Teams to a remote area or quickly to a distant location and safely insert a K9 Team not only increases safety for our patrol Deputies but our community as a whole and our surrounding law enforcement agency partners.
In addition, the K9 Unit harness is now part of Rescue 3’s available equipment should the need arise to retrieve a person in need, such as an injured hiker, who is with a K9 companion.