Lemont Firefighter, K-9 Pass Disaster Search Team Certification

LEMONT, IL — After over a year of training, Lemont Fire Protection District firefighter Rami ElShareif and his K-9 partner, Magnus, have received their national certification as a disaster search team.

ElShareif and Magnus trained with the state's Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team for several months before taking the national certification test earlier this month.

ElShareif, who has been a firefighter with Lemont since 2008, said that evaluators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency came from across the country for the certification test.

For the test, an unknown number of "victims" were hidden between two rubble piles, ElShareif said. Each pile had a time limit of 20 minutes, and Magnus had to search for them.

"For the first pile, Magnus had to search off-leash; once he indicated on a victim, I had to go mark the victim's position that he was indicating (barking) on live human scent," ElShareif said.

He then had to send Magnus to continue his search alone.

"This test shows that he indicates on live human scent, has loyalty to continuously barking at a victim, works away from me, his handler, and that he doesn’t false indicate," ElShareif said.

The duo cleared the first rubble pile in 8 minutes and 47 seconds.

The second test allowed ElShareif to walk with Magnus the whole time. ElShareif said this rubble pile included distractions such as food, clothing and human remains. If Magnus had falsely indicated on any of the distractions, it would have been an automatic fail, ElShareif said.

Magnus and ElShareif cleared the second pile in 9 minutes and 41 seconds, and Magnus never falsely indicated. The East German working line shepherd found all five victims between the two tests.

"We're now fully operational and can deploy anywhere in the country when called upon," ElShareif told Patch.

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