MULDROW (KFSM) – The Sequoyah County Sheriff and Emergency Management Director gave approval Tuesday (Feb. 23) for a Mounted Search and Rescue team to begin.
Granville Moad, who goes by “Mac,” initiated the project, and has a simple reason for starting a mounted search and rescue team.
“They don't have one," Moad said. "Somebody's got to do it."
"It'll make it a lot easier on horseback than walking through the woods and through the grass,” Emergency Manager Steve Rutherford said.
The horses will give search and rescue teams an advantage.
“You can take a horse to the top of a mountain if you know what you're doing,” Moad said. “It’s kind of tough to take an ATV to the top of a mountain over boulders; there's just not any walking room."
Moad has 13 horses on his ranch in Muldrow, but said he wants volunteers to train with their own horses if they want to be a part of the team.
“You trust your horse, he trusts you,” he said. “Some horses will react to just their handler, versus somebody else trying to get on it with totally different methods or totally different tones."
Even though he received approval Tuesday, Moad has several volunteers in mind who will go through training, adding they may be armed at times, when the team and sheriff's office think it’s necessary.
While the priority is Sequoyah County Moad said he is willing to travel outside county lines.
“A life is a life; doesn't matter to me what county it's in,” Moad said.
Sequoyah County Sheriff Ron Lockhart said the county has not had a mounted search and rescue team in at least two decades.
Lockhart said he expects the team will be ready to operate this spring.
Oklahoma County and Tulsa County both have mounted patrol search and rescue teams.