Denis Laus is search and rescue dog handler at the IRO member organisation @fire and IRO Classifier. We had the chance to pose a few questions to him:

Where were you when you received the notification that you were going to Lebanon on de­ploy­ment?

I was in Paris at the time and had to get from there to Frankfurt as quickly as pos­sible. Normally this is not a problem, but due to COVID-19 there was only one flight a day from Paris to Frankfurt. There­fore, I decided to take the car.

Apart from that, what influence did COVID-19 have on the overall deployment?

The entire team had to take acoronavirus test before departure and on arrival. Until we got the results, we stayed in quar­an­tine at our base camp.

What happened after you got the all-clear?

Each country was assigned a specific sec­tor. Together with the search units of the German organisation THW (Tech­ni­sches Hilfswerk) we searched for survivors with technical equipment and search and rescue dogs in the port area, one of the worst af­fect­ed parts close to the centre of the ex­plo­sion. Every morning before we started the search, we met with our THW col­leagues for a joint briefing to discuss the further procedure. There were also daily meetings with the team leaders of all other international organisations.

In your opinion, what was the biggest challenge for the search and rescue dog teams?

The heat and high humidity made the work of the dogs even more challenging. Already at 8 a.m. the heat was oppressive due to the humidity. Between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. the heat load was particularly high, so we had to adapt the search to the con­di­tions accordingly. Due to security reasons, we were not allowed to work at night. Another difficulty was the shat­tered glass, which was scattered every­where. A search in a warehouse where bottles of alcohol were stored was par­ticu­lar­ly dangerous for our dogs. The risk of injury for the dog by the splinters of glass bottles is much higher than, for example, by shards of broken win­dow­panes. Even wearing boots would not pro­tect the dogs sufficiently from injuries caused by the fine, pointed glass splinters. Since, after thorough examination, human search was possible in that part of the building without danger, I decided not to send my dog Sheeva in but to search the rubble field myself. It certainly took me a few minutes longer than he would have needed, but in the end, it was the only right decision.

Why is the deployment of search and rescue dogs after such disasters so immensely important?

To go faster and deeper in searches. It is also safer for the buried victims. It makes a difference whether a person with around 70 kilos is searching the rubble field or a dog with 25 kilos. We are always working in pairs of two search and rescue dog teams. My colleague Lars Prößler and the IRO certified dog Apple formed a search unit together with us. First, one of our dogs searches the area for survivors. Then the same area is searched by the second dog to confirm the result. When it is cer­tain that there are no more survivors under the rubble, the area is cleared for the cleaning process. This ap­proach is particularly efficient.

How long did the searches last?

The searches lasted only for two days. On Saturday, four days after the explosion, it was clear that there were no more sur­viv­ors under the rubble in any of the search areas.

Sheeva and you are an IRO certified team, did the IRO Mission Readiness Test help you to be prepared for an emergency of this kind?

Certainly yes. Completing realistic train­ing scenarios provides the necessary ex­peri­ence and routine to act purposefully in an emergency. Above all, the con­fir­ma­tion of the mission readiness of your dog by in­de­pend­ent classifiers gives you con­fi­dence. We completed our first Mission Readiness Test (MRT) in 2017 and suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the reclassification two years later.