From REMS Level I to SOAR: How PRS Built a Rescue Ecosystem
From REMS Level I to SOAR
When I started Prevail Rescue Solutions, there was no grand plan to build a giant rescue training ecosystem. There was no whiteboard covered in arrows, acronyms, and inspirational leadership quotes. I was not trying to create a new buzzword or a course catalog thick enough to stop a door. I were trying to solve a real problem that kept showing up in the field.
That problem was REMS.
More specifically, it was the gap between what rescue teams were being asked to do in the wildland environment and what many teams were actually prepared, equipped, and trained to execute when the injured worker incident became real. A downed firefighter in steep, remote, ugly terrain is not just a medical problem, just like it is not just a rope problem, just a packaging problem, or just a communications problem. It is all of those problems stacked together, usually with limited people, limited time, limited equipment, bad access, and an environment that seems personally offended by your plan.
That is where REMS Level I started. It was built around the idea that teams needed to access, assess, stabilize, package, and move an injured person out of an austere environment without defaulting to slow, heavy, urban-only rescue models. The mission was never to build the prettiest rope system on the hill. The mission was to solve the rescue problem in front of the team and move the patient toward definitive care. As fast as you f@#$ing can, but as safely as you must.
That mindset shaped everything that came after it. I learned to move light and fast, carry what mattered, leave behind what did not, and train the transitions that tend to wreck a clean plan the moment the incident stops behaving like a training prop. I wanted systems that were simple enough to execute under stress, strong enough to trust, and adaptable enough to survive contact with the actual environment.
Over time, something became obvious: the REMS problem was not limited to the wildland environment. The same decision-making, movement discipline, lightweight access concepts, patient packaging considerations, medical prowess, and extraction planning kept appearing in other technical rescue arenas. The terrain changed, the hazards changed, and the equipment sometimes changed, but the core problem stayed strangely familiar.
An injured operator several floors up in an urban structure. A patient trapped below deck on a vessel. A rescuer moving through steep mountain terrain with limited manpower. A casualty deep in a tunnel, mine, confined space, or collapse environment. Different locations, different hazards, same uncomfortable question: can this team reach the problem, stabilize the patient, and move with purpose under real operational constraints?
That question eventually became SOAR.
What SOAR Means
SOAR stands for Scalable Operational Austere Rescue. It is not one course, one trick, or one more acronym added to the rescue alphabet soup. SOAR is a training ecosystem built to help teams develop technical rescue capability that matches the environments they actually work in.
The ecosystem is organized around four operational pillars: Urban, Maritime, Mountain, and Subterranean. Each pillar has its own terrain, hazards, movement problems, equipment considerations, and operational tempo. A ship does not behave like a mountain, a tunnel does not behave like a rooftop, and despite our best efforts, patients rarely get injured in the most convenient place on the training calendar.
The point of SOAR is not to make every team good at everything. The point is to give each team a pathway to build the capability it actually needs, while keeping a common foundation of light, fast, scalable rescue. A municipal fire department may need urban vertical access, confined space integration, and structure collapse considerations. A SWAT or tactical team may need vertical mobility, downed operator retrieval, breaching, and TECC integration. A REMS team may need small-team mobility, land navigation, lightweight rope systems, prolonged extraction medicine, and helicopter interface. A maritime team may need shipboard access, boat-to-vessel transfer, and casualty movement through spaces that were clearly not designed by anyone who had to carry a litter through them.
Those are not identical missions, so they should not be forced into identical training. SOAR gives teams a common operating language while allowing the training to be shaped around their people, their equipment, their response area, and the calls they are actually expected to handle.
The Three-Tier Progression
Each SOAR pillar is built around a three-tier progression: Core Skills, Specialized Operations, and Integrated Mission or Assessment. That structure matters because too many teams are pushed straight into scenarios before the foundation is ready. Everyone wants to run the full mission profile, but the full mission profile gets messy fast when basic movement, rigging, packaging, communication, and role clarity are still held together with optimism and a roll of tape.
Tier 1 is where the foundation gets built. This is the baseline skill package that allows a team to move, access, rig, package, and solve simple problems without becoming immediately task saturated. It is not glamorous, which is usually a sign that it is important.
Tier 2 adds the specialty layer. This is where each domain begins to look more like the environment the team actually works in. Urban teams may move from forcible entry, into rope-to-building transitions, and execute tactical movement. Maritime teams may move into top-down shipboard access, vessel-based casualty movement, and minimal-kit rescue packages. Mountain teams may expand into multi-domain approaches, rapid packaging, long carries, land navigation, austere medicine, UTV operations, and helicopter integration. Subterranean teams may move into tunnel, mine, cave, zero-visibility, communications relay and extended-access transport problems.
Tier 3 is where everything gets connected. The team has to prove that the individual pieces can function as one system under pressure. Access, movement, patient care, packaging, communication, extraction, leadership, and contingency planning have to work together. The real world does not care that a team looked good at one isolated skill station. The real world wants to know what happens when the route changes, the patient gets worse, communications degrade, manpower gets thin, or the first plan politely sets itself on fire.
That is why the integrated mission and assessment layer is so important. It is where training stops being a collection of skills and starts becoming operational capability.
Pillar One: Urban
The urban environment is a three-dimensional rescue problem. Access may come from above, below, across, or through, and the patient may be on a roof, in a window, inside a shaft, above grade, below grade, behind a locked door, or somewhere in a structure where the safest way in is not the safest way out.
Urban SOAR is built around vertical access, 3D movement, tactical integration, breaching considerations, patient packaging, and extraction through the built environment. At the core level, teams need foundational vertical mobility. They need to understand equipment, knots, anchors, rappelling, ascending, lowering systems, hauling systems, protected movement, edge management, and how to move a patient without turning the building into an obstacle course sponsored by poor decisions.
As the training progresses, the problems become more operational. A team may have to transition from access to breaching, from breaching to patient contact, from patient contact to care, from care to packaging, and from packaging to evacuation through a structure that may not cooperate. This is especially relevant for SWAT, TEMS, rescue companies, fire departments, and specialty teams that may be responsible for high-risk access in vertical or complex urban spaces.
Urban rescue is not just rope on a building. It is access, movement, patient care, communication, and extraction inside an environment that can be vertical, compartmentalized, secured, unstable, hostile, or all of the above because apparently one problem at a time would be too generous.
Pillar Two: Maritime
The maritime environment has a way of humbling land-based assumptions. A system that works perfectly on dry ground may get awkward fast once the team is working from a boat, climbing onto a vessel, moving across wet steel, negotiating deck structures, or trying to package a patient in a space designed for machinery instead of humans.
Maritime SOAR focuses on shipboard access, boat-to-vessel transfers, vertical mobility on vessels, and casualty movement in the maritime space. The core skills give teams repeatable methods for accessing a vessel, moving around deck structures, managing edges, building simple systems, and packaging patients in tight or awkward spaces. The goal is not to pretend a ship is just a building that floats. That approach tends to fall apart quickly, usually right about the time everyone realizes the anchor options, footing, noise, movement, and patient path are not what they were during the classroom PowerPoint.
Specialized maritime operations may include top-down shipboard access, VBSS coordination, minimal-kit extraction, technical movement through vessel spaces, and casualty transfer from one platform to another. The emphasis remains on scalable systems, clean communication, and practical movement that supports the mission instead of burying the team under equipment before the work even starts.
Maritime rescue deserves its own treatment because the environment is different. The hazards are different, the access problems are different, and the movement considerations are different. Slapping a nautical label on a land-based rope class does not magically make it maritime training, even if the logo has an anchor in it.
Pillar Three: Mountain
The mountain pillar is where the original PRS roots are easiest to see. This is the world of REMS, remote terrain mobility, low-angle and high-angle rescue, austere anchors, multi-pitch problems, long carries, changing weather, limited access, and small teams trying to move efficiently through terrain that is actively voting against them.
The mountain environment rewards teams that understand load discipline, movement efficiency, patient packaging, route planning, and austere rigging. It punishes teams that are overloaded, rigid, or dependent on equipment they cannot realistically carry to the problem. It also has a talent for exposing whether a team has trained movement as much as it has trained systems.
Core mountain skills include terrain-based access, anchor craft, lowering and raising systems, edge management, belay transitions, multi-pitch considerations, rapid packaging, and patient movement across uneven ground. But the mountain pillar goes beyond rope. Specialized operations can include REMS, Type III or RATS concepts, extended transport, land navigation, protracted extraction medicine, UTV integration, helicopter interface, and the planning needed to keep a small team effective when help is not immediately around the corner.
That is the reality of remote rescue. The patient may not be at the road, the helicopter may not be immediate, and the extraction route may not be obvious. Medical care may have to continue through a long carry, the package may need to change as terrain changes, and the team may have to make decisions with limited information while still moving the mission forward.
The mountain pillar is not just about getting down a cliff. It is about building a team that can move through remote terrain, reach the patient, make sound decisions, and keep solving the problem until the patient is out.
Pillar Four: Subterranean
The subterranean environment changes the rules in a hurry. Movement is restricted, visibility may be poor or nonexistent, communications can become difficult, air quality matters, patient packaging becomes harder, and team rotation becomes more complicated. The environment itself can become the primary hazard, which is a polite way of saying the hole is not your friend.
The subterranean pillar includes confined space, tunnel, mine, cave, collapse, and other restricted-access rescue problems. At the core level, teams need confined space entry fundamentals, air monitoring, communications, rigging, PPE, patient packaging, and an understanding of how quickly a simple access problem can turn into an atmospheric, logistical, and personnel-management problem.
As the training progresses, teams may move into tunnel rescue, mine rescue, cave rescue, zero-visibility navigation, communications relay, extended-access transport, and complex patient movement through tight or degraded environments. The integrated layer may include collapse and recovery scenarios, victim location, shoring considerations, structural stability, and full-team operations where every movement has to be deliberate. Who knows, maybe you even have to breach, brake, or squeeze your way through.
Subterranean rescue requires discipline because there is very little room for wasted movement, unclear communication, unnecessary gear, or vague leadership. Everything has to earn its place: the people, the equipment, the plan, the backup plan, and the backup plan for the backup plan that everyone swears they will not need until they absolutely do.
The Add-On Modules: Building the Right Package
The four pillars give SOAR its structure, but the add-on modules are what allow the ecosystem to fit the team in front of us. No two agencies operate with the same staffing, tools, call types, geography, authority, or risk profile, and pretending otherwise is how training becomes impressive on paper and useless on the incident.
The add-on modules allow us to tailor a course or progression around the actual mission set. A tactical team, REMS group, rescue company, federal response element, harbor team, ski patrol, or industrial rescue group may all need technical rescue training, but they do not need the exact same package.
Auto X / Vehicle Breaching
Vehicle access and extrication do not always happen with a full heavy rescue assignment sitting neatly at the curb. Some teams may need to use organic, on-hand breaching assets to create access, make space, and move a patient under limited time, limited tools, or limited access. The Auto X / Vehicle Breaching module is built around practical mechanical extrication concepts that help teams understand how vehicles fail, how to create space efficiently, and how to make good decisions with the tools they actually have.
This is not meant to replace a full vehicle extrication discipline. It is meant to give teams a principle-based way to solve a vehicle access problem when the mission demands it and the cavalry is not parked three feet away with every tool in the county.
REMS
REMS remains one of the core engines of the PRS training model. Depending on the needs of the team, this module can include REMS Level I, REMS Level II, Type III or RATS concepts, lightweight vertical access, point-of-injury care, land navigation, multimodal extrication planning, prolonged extraction medicine, communications, and PACE planning.
For us, REMS is where many teams first learn that speed is not recklessness. Speed comes from preparation, simplicity, compatibility, and reps. A team that can move light, rig efficiently, package intelligently, and plan contingencies before the first plan fails is a team that has a real chance of staying ahead of the incident.
TECC
Point of injury casualty care cannot be separated from movement. In tactical, austere, or high-risk rescue, the medical plan and the extraction plan have to support each other. The TECC module allows C-TECC-aligned concepts to be integrated into the rescue environment so teams are not treating medicine and movement as separate lanes that occasionally wave at each other from across the parking lot.
A technically perfect rope evolution that ignores patient deterioration is not mission success. A technically perfect medical plan that cannot move is not mission success either. The patient has to be treated and moved within the reality of the environment, and that requires the technical and medical pieces to work together from the beginning.
Prolonged Field Care concepts also find their way into our teaching modalities. The transition from point of injury care, to long term sustained care, is an area few teams are familiar with or get sets and reps. This is absolutely mandatory though for small team rescue tactics.
Mechanical Breaching
Denied access is a rescue problem. A locked door, barred window, blocked passage, or hardened entry point can delay patient contact and slow the entire mission. Mechanical breaching gives teams a simple, proven, fireground-based approach to gaining access with basic tools and clean decision-making.
This module fits naturally into urban rescue, tactical rescue, subterranean access, and any environment where the route to the patient is not immediately available. The goal is not noise or tool theatrics. The goal is functional access.
Confined Space
Confined space rescue has its own hazards, rules, and realities. Air monitoring, communication, PPE, rigging, patient packaging, entry control, and environmental awareness all matter, and they matter quickly. The confined space module gives teams an OSHA-aligned rescue foundation that can support industrial, municipal, tactical, and subterranean rescue problems.
Confined space is one of those disciplines where assumptions can get people hurt. The training has to be deliberate, because the environment does not care how confident the team felt before entry.
Structure Collapse
Structure collapse requires a different lens. The problem may involve access, void spaces, shoring considerations, victim location, patient movement, and prolonged operations. Collapse rescue can quickly become slow, technical, and resource-heavy, but the early decisions still matter.
The structure collapse module helps teams think through both initial response and prolonged rescue ideology. It helps define what the team can do now, what needs to happen next, and where the risk is changing. That clarity matters when the environment is unstable and every action has consequences.
Instructor Development / Team Testing
Training is not complete just because a course ended and everyone got a photo in front of the equipment pile. Teams need a way to validate capability, identify gaps, and develop internal instructors who can keep the standard alive after the outside cadre leaves.
Instructor Development and Team Testing provide that mechanism. This module can include instructor methodology, team assessment, scenario evaluation, and in-depth reporting. The goal is to help teams understand where they are strong, where they are fragile, and what the next progression should look like.
That is how a team gets better over time. Not by collecting certificates, but by measuring capability and raising the standard.
Ski Lift Evac
Ski lift evacuation is a specialized problem that looks simple right up until weather, height, spacing, terrain, passenger condition, and communication all decide to contribute. Teams responsible for ski areas, mountain rescue, resort operations, or winter response need current, practical techniques that match the environment they actually work in.
The Ski Lift Evac module gives teams access to current techniques and professionals specific to that mission set. Like the rest of SOAR, it is about building the right capability for the right environment rather than forcing a generic solution into a specialized problem.
Why SOAR Had to Become an Ecosystem
SOAR grew out of operational necessity. REMS Level I answered one problem well, but the more teams I trained and the more missions I looked at, the more obvious it became that the same framework applied across multiple rescue environments. Teams did not just need another course. They needed progression, modularity, validation, and a way to build rescue capability that matched their real mission.
That is why SOAR is designed as an ecosystem rather than a single class. A team can start with core skills, add specialized capability, and then pressure test the whole thing through integrated missions or formal assessment. A small team can build foundational vertical mobility. A REMS team can progress into advanced austere extraction. A tactical team can add breaching, TECC, and multi-story evacuation. A maritime team can build shipboard casualty movement. A subterranean team can move from confined space fundamentals into tunnel, mine, cave, and collapse scenarios.
Different paths, same operating principles.
Light and Fast Is Still the Foundation
Even though SOAR has expanded well beyond where PRS started, the foundation has not changed. Light and fast does not mean careless, underbuilt, or casual about risk. It means moving as fast as the mission allows and as safely as the environment requires. It means understanding the difference between capability and clutter, and it means selecting equipment because it solves problems rather than because it looks impressive in a cache.
It also means training the transitions. Primary route to alternate route. Standard packaging to modified packaging. Reliable communications to degraded communications. Full manpower to reduced manpower. Clean training lane to messy, inconvenient, real-world rescue. Those transitions are where capability is proven, because the rescue rarely fails at the part everyone practiced perfectly. It fails at the seam between two tasks, right where the plan assumed things would stay friendly.
That is the heart of SOAR. Build the base, specialize intelligently, integrate the mission, and test the team against the environments they actually operate in.
Final Thought
Prevail Rescue Solutions started with REMS Level I because there was a real operational need. Teams needed a better way to access, treat, package, and move injured personnel in austere environments without being crushed by slow systems, heavy gear, and rigid dogmatic thinking.
SOAR is the expansion of that same idea into four operational pillars: Urban, Maritime, Mountain, and Subterranean. It gives teams a way to build core skills, add specialized operations, integrate realistic mission profiles, and select the add-on modules that support their actual response expectations.
The ecosystem is bigger now, but the mission is still simple: close distance, reach the patient, stabilize what needs to be stabilized, move with purpose, adapt when the plan changes, and build rescue capability that works in the environment where the team actually operates.
Need SOAR training for your team? Prevail Rescue Solutions can tailor a course around your agency, mission set, terrain, staffing model, and operational needs. Contact us through the website or email Bryan@prevailrescue.com.
