Using a live person for practice is foolish. When I left CCSAR  (because of illegal actions by then Sheriff Kernes and his "Captain" Bob Hamlin) I donated my royal blue HASTY Team response coveralls, with ankles and wrists sewn closed, to be stuffed with any materials at hand to simulate the weight of a victim. As our SAR Management Trainer, Pierce County Emergency Services Commander, Major Tom Miner, emphasized to us, "Unnecessary risk is unacceptable risk." 

One of the things you can learn from litter practice is that your anchors aren't good enough. Why risk a human life to learn that? Once that person is properly immobilized in the litter on a backboard you can tip them upside down and rotate them to test your harness attachments, but why drop them over the side of a cliff where at very least they are at risk of falling rocks dislodge by the "rescuers" or their ropes? Clallam County SAR should not be led by those that risk both lives & lawsuits wasting tax dollars unnecessarily.