In 1984 several people from different agencies and the general public formed a team to meet special emergency situations. The team became known as the Bridgewater Tactical Rescue Team and was a part of the Bridgewater Volunteer Rescue Squad. These emergencies go beyond the scope of usual fire and rescue call and include plane crashes, lost person searches in the woods, and injured caver or water related emergencies. In the early years the team responded to drownings, farm accidents, the flood of 1985, the Henson Airlines crash in 1996 as well as cave rescues and missing person searches in the National Forest and National Park Areas. Over the years we have operated in Maryland, West Virginia and North Carolina as a SAR resource for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. In 1994 the team became an independent organization known as Rockingham-Augusta Search & Rescue, or RASAR. We are dispatched by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Emergency Communications Center as Rescue 22. In 2008, our ground team won first place in a competition between search teams at the Black Diamond First Annual Invitational held at the Hungry Mother State Park. To this day we proudly serve Rockingham and Augusta Counties and the state of Virginia.
