Search and Rescue

Bushwalkers Search and Rescue (BSAR) is a volunteer organisation that can provide extra manpower to Police Search and Rescue if people are lost in the bush or the snow. When people are overdue coming back from a trip, they could be lost, injured, freezing cold, hungry, separated from their friends...you name it - and it can be critical to find them quickly.

Police SAR sometimes need to search large areas of difficult terrain quickly, which can require large numbers of experienced walkers, and that's where BSAR comes in. While police and SES vehicles can search roads and tracks, BSAR volunteers cover the off-track terrain, sometimes fighting through thick scrub or deep snow in search of missing people.

Winter BSAR training scenario.

Photo: Anja Fuechtbauer. 

BSAR volunteers come from outdoors clubs around Victoria, and a large proportion of them are current and past MUMC members. A few times a year we get a phone call late at night, asking if we want to pack our gear for a couple of days in the mountains, and be on a bus out of town by 3am. The answer is often a resounding "Yes!".

MUMC members have been involved in many significant searches in recent years, including the successful search for Marian Wang in the Grampians, where an MUMC member (Barnaby Hume) was in the group that found her safe and well. MUMC members who have accumulated the necessary skills and experience through time spent outdoors are welcome to come along to BSAR training weekends to learn about search and rescue, and add their names to the call-out list if they feel so inclined. Any inquiries can be directed to the MUMC BSAR Convenor.