LandSAR Wellington is an organisation of unpaid professionals that provide search and rescue services to the Police and the Rescue Coordination Centre across the greater Wellington region. Our Members are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to help the lost, missing and injured. In a typical year they donate over 16,000 hours of their time in training and operations to the community.
Our members are dedicated volunteers that deliver their services for free. We provide an operational response to emergencies that is completely free of charge to either the victim or government.
Operations can happen anywhere, including in suburban areas, Wellington’s regional and forest parks, rural areas, in the hills and mountains and along our coastline. We’re just as likely to be searching for a dementia sufferer in Porirua as a tramper in the Tararua Forest Park.
We are one of 63 LandSAR units affiliated to LandSAR New Zealand. As an affiliated unit, we provide specialist search and rescue capabilities to New Zealand Police and the Rescue Coordination Centre under a Memorandum of Understanding. We have 100+ unpaid professional members who train, prepare for and conduct operations.
During our last reporting year (1 October 2016 to 30 September 2017), we responded to 27 incidents (2,449 hours), held 16 training activities (1, 490 hours) and held 11 other events (233 hours). We rescued 45 victims.
Search and rescue operations almost always involve several different organisations. Locally, this usually means the Wellington Police specialist Search and Rescue Squad, and the communications providers AREC.
A typical operation involves 24 members deployed in the field, supported by 4-5 members in the management team, 1-2 AREC communications personnel and 2-3 Police. Most operations are resolved within 12 hours.