Deb's Search and Rescue Stories

Search & Rescue Stories

2024-01-17T16:54:00.003-07:00

Well, it's been a frustrating couple of days for me, as I've been stuck in a small office (listening to WAY too much news on the radio... ugh!) while the team was out on an evidence search. Call me a SAR addict, but I really don't like to miss a mission. But anyhow....

As I usually try to channel frustration into something productive, I've spent some time these past couple of days working on a new project: a website called called Search & Rescue Stories. The intention is to create a resource for those interested in true stories by and about search and rescue personnel, both volunteer and professional, and the people they help. I'm especially interested in first-hand accounts, something that's been challenging to find on the web. But I think I've got a decent start.

Also on the site are rescue videos—even one filmed by a rescuee—and SAR team directories, including ground and mountain rescue teams, K-9 SAR teams, mounted units, and international SAR organizations. On many of the team websites, you can read interesting mission reports. I'll be perusing those sites myself, looking for stories to highlight.

On SARstories, there's a section for articles, studies, e-zines and gear reviews, and a blog as well. I've got some ideas for additional features, but since I'm building the site by the seat of my pants, I first have to figure out how to create those features. (And if you have any suggestions for me, please let me know. Feedback is more than welcome.)

SARstories.com will be an ongoing project, as I continually look for new material, not to mention check to be sure all those links remain active. While searching for SAR team websites, I found some other online directories, but many of the links were broken. So it'll be a goal of mine to keep the site up-to-date.

So if you're a search and rescue team member, or perhaps were the subject of a SAR mission or know someone who was, and have a story, article or video to share, you can email me at debekingsbury@gmail.com, and I'll link to your site or create a space for you on mine. Thanks and have a great day!

Closure

2014-12-03T15:13:00.001-07:00

For anyone who may have followed the news about missing hiker Tom Lang, 22, last year around Christmas, here is an update.

From the Arizona Daily Sun:
Searchers Find Possible Remains of Missing Hiker

My heart goes out to Tom's family and friends, but I'm so glad he was found. His parents' perseverance was... well, what can I say? Rest in peace, Tom.

Support the Team: Coconino County Search & Rescue Film Night and Fundraiser

2013-08-28T13:43:00.001-07:00

Hi, folks and faithful followers...

I know it's been ages since I've posted anything here—life has been so busy, so I've had to let some things slip, including blogging—but [waving like a nut] I'm still here and still loving being part of SAR and proud to be a member of this wonderful team of volunteers here in Coconino County. Matter of fact, I intend to keep at it for as long as I can be of service in some capacity, which hopefully will be for decades to come.

From a search in Havasupai Canyon

So, there have been many missions since I last posted, a few that took me into part of this amazing county I've never been (Paria Canyon, Havasupai, Sundance Canyon) and others in places that have become so familiar over the past six years I've been on the team. I haven't been able to respond as often as I used to because of other obligations and a few vacations, but I'm doing as much as I can, as often as I can, and looking forward to helping with the new member academy coming up soon.

Anyhoo... to the main point of this post:

I wanted to pass along news of an upcoming film night and fundraiser, which you can attend at two different places: the Orpheum Theater here in Flagstaff on September 17th or the Pollack Tempe Cinemas in Tempe on the 18th. Here's the official scoop from the Facebook announcement...

American Canyoneers has launched a fundraising campaign to help the team help us. These funds will be used for the purchase of critical equipment and training for team members.

How can you help? Easy! Come watch a few great films about canyoneering! Along the way you’ll see a presentation by the SAR team about the rescue in Insomnia Canyon, certainly one of the most difficult slot canyon rescues ever. You’ll be stunned at the effort the team had to put into saving one life. Join us in Flagstaff on September 17th at the Orpheum Theater or in Tempe on September 18th at the Pollack Tempe Cinemas.

Have fun, celebrate our favorite pastime, learn how you can avoid being the next victim, and support our SAR team.

Check out the schedule for the evening and more about the films at http://www.americancanyoneers.org/coconino-sar-fund-raiser/

You can order tickets (and make an additional donation to SAR if you'd like) here: http://americancanyoneers1.eventbrite.com/

Hope you can make it!

Climb On!

2013-01-29T09:16:00.004-07:00

Climb on. Okay... I can do that. Sort of. I did a little of this (once) with the team at the Mt. Elden climbing area and got, oh, maybe 10 feet off the ground—felt like 100 feet to me—partly by wedging my face into a crack. Probably a deduction in style points for that move.

This time, we were at the Vertical Relief Climbing Gym here in Flagstaff, getting some special instruction from two of their experts, happy to be training indoors on that cold, rainy Sunday morning. This was training specifically to help us with buttom-up rescues, when we can't access the rescue-ee(s) from above, which is the norm for our team. But we do come across situations, as recently happened on a rescue down in Sedona (see link to news article below), where some climbing comes into play when there's no way to rig rope systems from the top.

A number of our tech team members are already good climbers, and I believe at least a couple of them would be considered expert level themselves. Others are very competent. But there are some, especially me, who are new to this bottom-up stuff, so this was very valuable training and not the last we'll do.

We were given an excellent intro to top-rope and lead-climbing techniques, as well oh-so-important belaying skills, which are different, of course, from the bottom than they are when belaying someone on rappel or who's ascending or being raised from above.

Needless to say, I'm much more comfortable belaying than being belayed while climbing. Sure, I still have my share of nerves when I go over the edge from the top (always will, I think), but climbing up is another story. Instead of being able to put my weight on the rope and trusting the system when working from the top, climbing makes me feel like I'm always on the verge of falling, even though I know someone's "got me" and that things have been safety-checked.

Someone recommended I need to actually fall a few times... onto the belay, of course... to get over that feeling. Probably true.

Anyway, this is what I posted on Facebook yesterday about that experience at the climbing gym:

I was not good at it. I was scared, and I tossed what pride I have out the window. But every time I learned something new (different ways to use the handholds, how to shift my weight, etc.)... and every time I got higher up the wall... and when I made it down-climbing all the way back despite my shaking muscles (from nerves and the fact that I don't use some of those muscles very often), I felt just a tiny bit more confidence creep in. Part of me really wants to learn how to climb—mostly at the gym—just to get better at something that is so NOT a natural talent for me, that challenges me both mentally and physically, and something that makes me face my fear but in a safe way. I think I'll put that on my to-do/wish list.

So, I think I'll start saving my extra pennies and eventually take some lessons. In the meantime, I'm actually looking forward (in a nervous, insecure kinda way) to more of these bottom-up trainings with the team.

Recent Local Search & Rescue Missions and SAR Members in the News

Rescue Crews Save Freezing Homeless Man

Massive Effort Rescues Man from Bottom of Meteor Crater (January 10 -- A major, multi-agency rescue involving in frigid, windy conditions and a difficult confined space extraction)

Stranded Hikers Rescued Near Sedona (This is that bottom-up rescue I was referring to. I was not able to respond to this tech team call-out.)

A Day in the Life: Getting Paid to Hike (A story about one of our SAR teammates, who's also a backcountry guide in Grand Canyon)

A Happy SAR Ending for the New Year

2013-01-07T08:47:00.005-07:00

Wikimedia Commons / CC

I know it's been a while since I've written anything here, and the reasons are many, including the fact that we just haven't received as many SAR calls over the past several months as we did before that, during my five years and counting on the team.

And that's a good thing! It may be that more calls have been resolved by Sheriff's deputies before they've gotten to the point that the team was needed and/or perhaps fewer people have gotten into bad SAR-type situations recently... at least, in our area.

Whatever the case may be, my phone hasn't rung nearly as much with "SAR" showing up on the display.

But there have been missions, including some technical rescues I've not been able to respond to. I'm just not always allowed to write about the missions I'm involved with... unfortunately for me, being the prolific writer-type. So, I sometimes have to sit on my hands.

Suffice it to say, some of those missions haven't had happy endings like the one that just happened yesterday, when a seven-year-old boy who'd been missing since about 10 a.m. the day before was reunited with his family after an extensive search that included search and rescue teams from several counties, with ground-pounders, K9, and mounted units, jeep posses, and air support from DPS and the Air Force, along with the many locals who came out to help search. Cole Evans had spent a long, cold night alone "out there," under an abandoned trailer, so we learned when he was finally located around nine-something the next morning.

Here's an article about the search with a great photo of Cole's reunion with his dad: Missing Seligman Boy Found

All I can say is: YAY! What a huge relief. As I was searching through much of the night with my field team, I kept noticing the cold—at freezing or below with snow still on the ground among the pinion, juniper, and cactus—thinking about Cole and wondering if he was cold and scared. As we searched beneath trees and up in the branches, and under and inside abandoned vehicles and trailers, I kept hoping that someone would say over the radio that the boy been found. It didn't matter who found him of course—just that he was safe.

As my group debriefed back at Incident Command in the middle of the night, I looked over at the house Cole should be in, warm and safe. I saw the lights on and thought about what the family inside must be going through.

As my search partner and I drove away, talking to ward off the need for sleep after our shift, we saw lights of searchers' headlamps glimmering in the distance, the headlights from searchers' vehicles, red and blue flashing lights from law enforcement vehicles, lights in the sky from searching aircraft, and we wondered if Cole was seeing or hearing any of that.

Needless to say, I was so relieved to hear, later that morning after I'd gotten some rest and pulled prickly pear spines out of my socks, that Cole had been found, and that he was "fine" and eating snacks. I began to see the happy announcement posted all over social media, where people had been sharing search updates from the media and worrying together about the boy.

Thinking about recent missions that didn't have a similar outcome, this one left me with a very big smile and a happy heart. Let's hope the trend continues.

SAR Ops: A Different Perspective

2012-10-25T08:45:00.003-07:00

It's one thing to learn about search and rescue operations ("ops") and the Incident Command System (ICS) in the classroom and do table-top exercises with other SAR ops students—it's quite another to actually do those things... or assist, anyway... in the field.

Although I've responded to a few ops leader call-outs for mission startups (to help the coordinator before a general call-out is made), I had my first "real" chance to help with field ops during our team's recent mock search for the annual new member SAR Academy. Actually, I was asked to lead the exercise, and, though I didn't have the experience necessary to act as Incident Commander, even on a "pretend" mission, I agreed to step up and do it. I wanted to jump in and get some of that real ops experience, mock search or not.

The purpose of this field exercise, held at the end of the SAR Academy, is to give new members an idea of what an actual mission is like, beginning with receiving the call/email/text message call-out, phoning in to the SAR line with their name and badge number, and responding to the SAR building. Then it's a matter of getting all equipment, radios, and SAR vehicles ready to go and receiving a briefing and their strike team (or task force) assignments. From there, students work with their team members in the field, including navigating and handling radio communications, and documenting and relaying information about clues. Once the subject(s) is/are found, the students come up with an evacuation plan and move the subject(s) out of the field, back to base. Finally, they debrief and go through other aspects of wrapping up a mission, particularly the "hasty" search phase, which is when the majority of missing or overdue subjects are located. The field exercise gives new members a chance, with the help of experienced team members, to put together all the skills they've learned during the SAR Academy and put them to practical use.

All I can say is, I'm grateful for the help and support of several members of the team who have a lot more ops experience than I do. While I was able to facilitate the planning (I'm good at sending out emails!) and help carry out this field exercise, which was a search for two overdue subjects in a wooded area near Flagstaff, there was much I didn't know how to do or that would have taken me too long to figure out on my own. For example, I didn't know how to work the computer program to create the specific maps we needed for the briefing packets; I would have taken a lot longer to come up with assignments for all of the field teams, both ground SAR and mounted, on my own; and I would have been overwhelmed as the IC (incident commander). So many things going on all at once, and many of those things in constant flux.

To expect that a mission—even a mock mission where we plan the locations for our "missing" subjects to be found—will go off just as planned from beginning to end would be to expect the nearly impossible, as I see it. I could lie there in bed at 2 a.m., as I did one night when I couldn't sleep, and imagine the whole thing, from call-out to debrief at the conclusion of the search, as a nice, orderly mental movie. In reality, things didn't go quite as I'd imagined (or planned), starting right from that call-out, which was sent to new members and those experienced team members who'd volunteered to help as "observers."

After the call-out was finally made at 8:10 a.m., it took longer than expected for everyone to arrive at the SAR building. And an assignment was changed last minute. And the unpaved Forest Service road the mounted unit members had to drive with their horse trailers and horses to get to their starting point turned out to be in much worse shape than expected (compared to the last time any of us were out there). And the shuttling of ground-pounder strike teams was rather complex and time-consuming. (Did I mention some of those roads are really bad?) And that "jeep track" on the map—the one where I instructed one of our subjects to leave a clue she was given and then, further along that jeep track, to hang out with her mock ankle injury and wait to be found and rescued—well, that jeep track wasn't really there anymore, so she couldn't find it. And the list goes on.

One thing I had some good practice at during this process was delegating. In some cases, I didn't have to ask. The team members who helped me with the planning gladly offered to take on tasks, and I went from one person to the other, looking over their shoulders, helping where I could, asking questions, and listening and watching and learning. Then, when the call-out was made, we had the added help from those experienced observers, who gave direction to the new folks as they arrived at the building, helped them understand their assignments and find their starting points on the maps, directed them in loading equipment and preparing to leave the bay, and assisted with all other aspects of the mission.

Me? Oh, I ran around. A lot. I shuttled searchers and eventually the Stokes litter and medical supplies to the evac team. And I assisted at Incident Command as information came in over the radio and teams in the field asked for direction as the search went on. I didn't do any hiking that day, but, wow, when I got home I felt like I'd walked miles.

All in all, the field exercise went well, and I think (hope) all new members got something useful out of it. Actually, I'm sure they did, including better understanding the fact that we all need to be flexible during missions because things are continuously changing and that sometimes we get assignments that may seem "boring" or "useless" but are actually vital to the mission, including doing containment and also finding out where a missing person is not. There were new members who actually said those things to me—that the field exercise helped them realize those aspects of search and rescue—and that definitely was good to hear.

So, I'm holding on to the briefing packet and the notes I made this time around and want to participate with planning and ops again next year, hopefully by then with more confidence and skills I can bring to the table.

One thing's for sure: I now have an even better appreciation for how challenging SAR ops is and really admire those who can handle sometimes very stressful and complex missions so well. It can be easy to comment from a searcher's point of view on how things are managed and carried out, but putting myself even just somewhat in the position of a SAR ops leader has given me a whole new perspective. Not to mention the desire to get a whole lot better at it.

Welcome, Tank! Our Team's Newest Certified, 4-Legged Member

2012-08-05T08:01:00.002-07:00


Tank (Used with permission from D. Christian)

Isn't he a beauty? This is Tank, a two-year-old bloodhound–Labrador retriever mix, owned and loved by his handler, Diane, who's been involved with search and rescue for many years. Diane is retired from law enforcement, where she worked with SAR and police detection dogs for explosives and tracking. She got her first tracking dog in 1992. Tank is her third hound.

Together, they recently passed the highest K-9 trailing certification in the country: NASAR SARTECH Canine Trailing I.

For information on the various NASAR Canine certifications and what those tests entail, see NASAR Canine SAR or go directly to their PDF file on Canine Certification Programs.

Tank, a rescue dog out of a shelter in Los Angeles, is actually a tracking canine with a trailing certification. This means that our team is now fortunate to have both a tracking/trailing dog and three cross-trained air-scent/human remains detection dogs to assist with our missions. All the dogs and their handlers train (which is like play time to the dogs) at least a few times each week to keep up their skills and their fitness.

For those who aren't familiar with the different types of SAR K9s and the way they work, here's a basic overview:

Tracking Dogs — This type of SAR dog works from a scent article that has the subject's odor on it, such as a piece of clothing or hat, a pillow case, a hair brush, and so forth. (It's best if the handler collect the scent article so it's done correctly and not contaminated with someone else's scent.) The dog picks up the specific human scent from that item and uses it to locate the path that person took. Tracking dogs generally work on a long lead, taking the handler to the subject by following the missing person's footsteps.

Trailing Dogs — Trailing dogs work in a manner that's very similar to tracking dogs. A scent article is carefully obtained in order to isolate the missing person's scent. The search dog then smells the scent article and uses that smell to find and follow the path the person took. With trailing dogs, though, the dog might veer off the missing person's actual track, cutting corners and using the wind to its advantage. Trailing dogs generally work on a 20- to 30-foot lead.

Air Scent Dogs — Unlike tracking and trailing dogs, air scent dogs work off-lead, ranging back and forth to pick up human scent. ANY human scent, that is, which is why it's important to test wind direction and, as much as possible, keep other people (i.e., searchers) downwind of the dog while its searching an area. Ranging often takes the air-scent dog out of the handler's sight for a time, so the handler must trust the dog and wait for an alert. Once the dog picks up human scent, they'll move in toward the source and then give an alert to the handler. That alert might be barking while staying with the source of the scent or might be done by returning to the handler and somehow conveying to that person, "Follow me!" The dog then leads the handler to the subject.

In general, air scent dogs are not scent-discriminating the way tracking/trailing dogs are, so scent articles are not used. Rather, the air scent dog will seek out any human scent and alert the handler. If the human who's located is not the subject, the handler will reward the dog for the find and then give the command to continue searching.

There are variations to the above, but those are the basics.

Here's another shot of Tank at work...

Photo used with permission by D. Christian

In other Coconino County SAR news, these are missions our team has recently been involved with:

Climber Injured in Oak Creek Fall: A 43-year-old Flagstaff man fell about 40 feet while climbing near the Oak Creek Canyon overlook on Monday. A tourist saw the man fall and called 911. A technical rescue followed, with cooperation by crews from Coconino County Search & Rescue, the Sedona Fire Department, and the Highlands Fire Department.

Crews Search Oak Creek for Missing Minnesota Man: 27-year-old Shaun Rentz of Minnesota was reported missing after he failed to meet with friends over the weekend and then didn't show up to move in with friends at their new home in the Twin Cities on Monday. His abandoned vehicle was then located near Flagstaff, Arizona, at the Oak Creek Canyon Overlook parking area, later that same day. Here's another article with additional information and a photo of Shaun: Car of Missing Twin Cities Man Found in Arizona.

Any questions about these or other SAR missions in Coconino County should be directed to the Coconino County Sheriff's Office.

A Change of SAR Plans -- Community Education to a Rescue Instead

2012-07-07T12:19:00.003-07:00

I was supposed to go to a day camp with three other SAR members, to help teach kids ranging in age from five to 12 how to use a compass, what makes a "good pack" versus a "bad pack" (that is, gear you should bring on a hike versus stuff to leave at home), and how to not get lost or to "get found" if you do. We went to this summer camp last year, and our program was a hit with campers and camp leaders alike, so they'd asked us to come back.

And I was going to, until right before I was supposed to leave the house. That's when there was a call-out for a rescue, possibly technical the message said, in the Dorsey Springs area of Sycamore Canyon.

So, per the request of the deputy coordinating the mission, I bailed on my teammates going to the camp and responded to the rescue instead.

Late the night before, there had been a call-out for the search for this 41-year-old overdue hiker who now needed rescue. I hadn't responded to that call because of my prior commitment to the camp program in the morning. Apparently, this man was at least a day overdue when a concerned family member had reported him missing, and his vehicle had been located by deputies at the Dorsey Springs trailhead. Just after dawn, searchers had found him down in the canyon, severely dehydrated, weak, and disoriented.

By the time those of us responding to the rescue call later that morning arrived at the trailhead, the hiker had been hydrated and slowly walked with aid partway up the trail. At that point, the man said he couldn't walk anymore. The two deputies who were with him requested assistance and more water. Several of us hiked in with supplies to meet up with them.

When we arrived, the man was sitting under a tree. He drank some Gatorade and spoke to one of our teammates, who's a paramedic. The man said he was okay except for being dehydrated and clearly explained what had happened over the past several days. The searchers who'd found first his backpack and then, maybe a few hundred yards away, the subject filled us in on his state of mind and actions at the time he was located. He'd made quite an improvement after having something to drink and eat.

Sadly, the two dogs he'd brought on the multi-day hike—adult, black-colored boxers, a male and a female—were nowhere to be found. They'd stopped following him at least a day and a half earlier and laid down in the shade. Had they had enough left in them to find their way back to the last water source they'd been at with the man? I hoped they had. And that they'd survive long enough for someone to find them. I was preoccupied by those thoughts as I watched the short-haul procedure, when the man was air-lifted to the trailhead. He refused medical transport by the waiting ambulance.

Lessons for the day: Carry a lot of water if hiking in hot desert canyons during the summer. Hike early and hike late, and rest in the shade during the day. Know where the water sources are, and make sure they currently have water in them. Call the Forest Service or whichever agency oversees the area and check on those sources. For Sycamore Canyon, that would be:

Coconino Forest Supervisor's Office
1824 S. Thompson St.
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
(928) 527-3600
Fax: (928) 527-3620

Update: I've been told that one of the two dogs that had been lost in the canyon has been located alive and returned home. The other has not been found yet. So keep an eye out if you're down there!

An All-Night Search in Ashfork

2012-07-03T14:01:00.004-07:00

I was tired. When the call came from SAR, I was sitting in a Lay-Z-Boy being very lazy. It was around 9 p.m., and I was ready for bed. I listened to the short message about the mission, looked at the text that came through seconds later, and put the phone back down. "Not this time," I told Jeremy.

But then, two minutes later, Cindy, our K9 handler, called me directly. Our coordinator was requesting the dogs, and would I be her backer, she asked. *sigh* Okay, for Cindy I would go. So, I met her at the SAR building about 20 minutes later and loaded my gear into her vehicle to the tune of three excited golden retrievers. They'd already hiked several miles earlier that day, but they were still rearing to go. The two of us two-legged creatures, though? Not so much.

We got our brief briefing—a 70-year-old gentleman with what sounded like a moderate level of dementia (possibly Alzheimer's) had now been missing nearly 24 hours after driving someone else's vehicle to the very rural area where he lives, then left the vehicle in the trees near a dirt road and walked away. This was not the first time he'd gotten lost while trying to go home.

Cindy and I left the SAR building ahead of our teammates as they got some additional gear ready. We were supposed to rendezvous with two deputies who were at the location where the abandoned vehicle had been found. That was now the initial planning point (IPP). From there, we'd begin our search with the dogs, and the other volunteers would soon follow.

When we found our way to the waiting deputies through a network of dusty roads and jackrabbits (actually managed not to hit any as they streaked across the murky beams of our headlights), we consulted with them (the deputies that is, not the rabbits) about what had and had not been found and determined the area we thought was the highest probability. Then it was time to let the excited dogs out to do their thing: search.

"Your assignment," Cindy half-whispered to the three wet noses that turned her way, "should you choose to accept it... is..." After the usual dramatic pause, she shouted, "Go find!" Three fuzzy golden tails shot off into the dark as we followed much more slowly. We would walk the grid, and the dogs would range around us as we moved.

As the backer, it was my job to handle radio communications, navigate the grid within our search area given the information from Cindy about wind direction and her instructions about how she wanted to work the dogs, and keep us all on track. "Go a little more left," I would say, then, "Turn a bit more to the right," as I stayed behind and to the side of Cindy, trying to make a pretty little grid pattern on my GPS while still looking around.

In the light of my headlamp, obscured by the dust we were kicking up as we walked across bone-dry ground, I tried to manage the topo map and my GPS without walking into a pinion, juniper, or ponderosa pine or tripping on rocks, dips, and forest debris. Needless to say, on more than a few occasions I had to say to Cindy, "I need to stop to get this figured out. I can't walk and try to read a map and GPS at the same time." Yeah, I was moving and searching and calling the subject's name, but I was cranky, too.

I was also still frustrated because it had taken a while for me to get myself oriented that night, out there in the fairly flat and, aside from one major drainage, often featureless, forested terrain. Even when I had my map oriented to the way I was facing, the mental picture was alluding me. And the frustration only confused me more.

After talking to myself, though—aloud for anyone to hear—and working it out ("okay, this is that road," I said, pointing toward my feet and then to the map, "and this is that road... so, okay, we're right here, and we want to go that way...") the mental picture finally appeared and cleared. So on my mark, we were ready to go.

And then Cindy gave the dogs their little "your assignment" shpeel. (See, I still have things all messed up.)

Anyhow, this whole K9 handler/backer thing is so much about communication, and though we sometimes get cranky—one or both of us—Cindy and I really have learned how to talk things out, to problem-solve and reason and get back on track when we get a bit off. We've also worked through temporary miscommunications and misunderstandings without getting all unglued. The more we work together, the better we become as a team. I like that!

Well, long story just a little shorter, we did lots of walking throughout the night and into the next morning. We also did lots of calling out for the subject. The dogs worked their tails off. And we saw, to our pleasure, that one of Cindy's dogs, who'd originally been trained as a tracking/trailing dog and later switched over to air-scenting, reverted to tracking/trailing when the opportunity—human scent on the ground—presented itself. Sure enough, we found footprints. Good dog!

But we weren't the ones who actually found the subject. It was a friend of his who found him, safe and asleep in the corner of a room in his own home, just after Cindy and I were released to return to Flagstaff later that morning. The man we'd been looking for for nearly 12 hours had apparently found his house sometime during the night, after the friend, who was supposed to stay in case the man showed up, had left to return to his own home.

Well, all was well enough that ended well. The man was okay and, for now at least, home safe.

A couple of hours later, after insisting to Jeremy that I can't sleep during the day, I was fast asleep on the living room floor.

A Busy Memorial Day Weekend for Search and Rescue

2012-06-12T17:15:00.005-07:00

The San Francisco Peaks / Wikipedia -- CC

It was a bright, sunny day in Flagstaff, but I was nervous about going up that mountain I've hiked so many times before. My nerves were because that clear spring day was unseasonably cold and extremely windy in town, more than 5,000 feet lower than up on the exposed ridge. I have what I think is a healthy respect for those conditions, which made me pause to reconsider them when our coordinator walked over to those of us who'd congregated at the base of the trail and said no one was obligated to go up if they didn't feel comfortable or prepared.

I quickly looked through the extra clothing in my SAR pack, now adjusted for warmer weather, and decided I had just enough (thermals, fleece, and Gore-tex) for the freezing temps we'd face up there. But I was still on edge about the wind, which would be much stronger on the ridge. Ultimately, I decided to go up with my teammates.

This was to be a body recovery. Our team knew that before we'd left the SAR building, where a group of us had been in the midst of a Saturday technical rescue training. Others were doing P-SAR (preventative search and rescue) in a popular ATV area, which always sees a lot of activity and often a number of accidents over the Memorial Day weekend. A couple of those SAR volunteers also responded to this mission on the mountain.

We'd been informed that a couple of hikers had come upon an unresponsive man a short distance from the 12,633-foot summit of Mt. Humphreys and immediately began CPR. One of the hikers continued to work on the victim while another called 911 (there's cellphone coverage high on the mountain). Sadly, after about half an hour of effort, CPR was unsuccessful. No one knew at that point how long the then-unidentified man had been down when the hikers found him.

What was obvious, however, when our team, including our coordinator who hiked up with us, arrived at the victim's location was that he was a runner. And that's what he'd obviously been doing—an early trail run to the summit—when he'd died among the rocks and rime ice. None of us recognized this man, who we eventually found out was from Goodyear, AZ. He was 53 years old and appeared to be exceptionally fit.

In fact, he'd recently run a marathon and was, according to his family, doing high-altitude training here in Flagstaff for an upcoming event. So said the news article I read a few days later. I'd been scanning the paper each day for any information.

At the time of the mission, though, I looked at this man for long moments every now and then, thinking, who are you? And who might be waiting for you at home?

When this man, lying among the rocks, had woken up that morning, it had probably been a day like most any other day. Or so he'd thought. I'll bet he'd been feeling fine. Probably better than fine. I didn't know a thing about him at the time, but I was sad for him and for his family and friends, whoever they might be.

But back to work...

As our team braced against the uncomfortable conditions on the ridge, discussing options for bringing the man's body down the mountain, we all noticed a rather sudden drop in the wind. So, in an attempt to take advantage of the improved conditions, however long they might last, our coordinator made a call to DPS and, within a short time, we heard the helicopter approaching. One of the best pilots there is anywhere hovered, the helicopter visibly shifting and swaying, buffeted by the gusts that were still plenty strong, as he and his medic assessed the situation, and those of us on the ridge hoped aloud that this alternative would work.

It could, the pilot said over the radio. The winds were too strong for a short-haul, but he would go land down at Snowbowl, remove a door, prepare the cargo net, and burn off some fuel, then return to hover over our location.

Still, nothing was certain until that actually happened. We took shelter on the lee side of some boulders as we waited for the helicopter to return. If the cargo net maneuver didn't work, then it was back to plan A or B or... well, something much more difficult for us mere mortals on the ridge.

In less than an hour, the man who'd died on Humphreys earlier that day was air-lifted from the mountain as those of us who'd gone up to help began descending the long way.

*********

That wasn't the only time this recent Memorial Day weekend that our SAR team was called to Mt. Humphreys. The night before the body recovery, on Friday, May 25, several of our members rescued hikers from the saddle who were unprepared for the cold.

Another group was rescued from the nearby Kachina Trail.

*********

Our K9 team was also busy over the weekend, after hikers found a human skull at a small campsite in Forest Lakes. K-9 handlers Cindy and Dianne and their dogs were called to search the area and eventually located 26 more bones and other evidence, but there was no vehicle around and no ID found.

Sheriff's Office investigators are asking for the public's help to identify the man based on items located. Investigators believe the man had a 44-inch waist and wore size double-extra-large shirts. A Bass Pro Shop hat and a tan hat with a red diver's symbol on it were also found, as well as a Harley Davidson bandana, red Peterbilt suspenders, fishing waders, and a green five-gallon water jug. The man was possibly last wearing a tan T-shirt and blue jeans.

See: Weekend No Holiday for County Sheriff's Office

A Remote Canyon Search

2012-05-21T09:03:00.002-07:00

The sand-blasting lasted less than a minute as the helicopter lifted off, and then it was quiet. Very quiet and still, save for a distant tweetle (of a Canyon wren perhaps) and a curious fly buzzing my ear. I stood there for a long moment, taking in the silence and surveying the scenery. We'd been dropped off on what seemed like an island, on a shelf between the Esplanade high above us and the Redwall cliffs below.

This was my third day on what had been, so far, a week-long search for an overdue and very experienced canyon hiker. Today was his 66th birthday, and I was hoping to wish him a happy one... or that someone else would, at least.

Was he out here somewhere in this vast, rugged, incredibly beautiful landscape of colorful rock layers, cactus and cliffs? If anyone could survive out here, he could. But for how long? Or was he long gone maybe, alive and well outside of the area? Lots of scenarios had passed through my mind and in the minds of other searchers over the past week.

My teammate broke through my thoughts and the silence.

"You can search the inner part," he said. "I'll go out near the edge." He knows I'm not fond of edges when I'm not on a rope.

We both hoisted our packs, heavy with water, and began walking slowly among the cactus and desert brush, studying the ground and stopping frequently to look around for anything that didn't look "usual"—an out-of-place color that might catch our eye, bird activity. Any kind of sign that another person had passed through the area. We were also listening and looking carefully for rattlesnakes. Both "pinks" and "greens," the latter being the very deadly Mohave rattlesnake, had been seen (and heard) during this search.

These were some of the most difficult tracking conditions I'd encountered during my years in SAR, not just the rocky and coarse, sandy substrate but the fact that wild horses and other critters had tramped all over the place, including here, along the bottom of the canyon where I'd searched two days earlier, and on the Esplanade where I'd searched two days before that. Add the age of some of the tracks we had encountered, and I really had to go slow, look around at the same spots from different angles, and get down on hands and knees at times. My teammate and I occasionally consulted with one another: "Is that a footprint or a hoof print?" Sometimes, in some conditions, it's hard to tell.

We searched our canyon island from end to end, looking carefully at the "pinch-points" to the north and south where someone would have to have walked in order to get around the side canyons, the heads of which left little room to negotiate the drop-offs.

No signs of human prints or other evidence.

We took a break in the shade of a large overhang, careful to check there too before sitting down, in case someone else had also taken respite in that cool, cozy nook. But again, nothing.

We watched a single, circling vulture, but the bird soon moved on and circled somewhere else.

And we found nothing more before the helicopter came back for another sandblasting, to pick us up and fly us back to Incident Command, where we converged with other field teams. No one reported any new sign on this particular day.

But as far as I heard at the last general SAR meeting, there is more searching to be done, to follow up on sign found by a Park Service employee who was helping with the mission. I'd seen him when he started off at the head of Mohawk Canyon, prepared to be out for as long as six days. He was one of several canyon experts who's assisted the Sheriff's Office and our team with this search.

Want to read more about this mission and who we're searching for? See...

Hiker on Hualapai Reservation Missing

Missing Hiker a Canyon Expert

A bird's-eye view from the helicopter

On the Esplanade on my second day as part of this search

My teammate, Steve, searches on the Esplanade.

SAR Ops: From Classroom to Call-Out

2012-05-07T09:20:00.001-07:00

I had just received my Inland Search Management class certificate the day before, on Friday. At 4:15 a.m. Saturday, my phone beeped me awake with a text message then rang moments later. It was a call-out for operations leaders to respond to the SAR building for a search for a missing person—my first call-out as one of those ops folks.

Also the first to show up, I found a note on our coordinator's office door, saying he'd gone to the main Sheriff's Office building—something about picking up information regarding the subject's recent cellphone activity—so I waited. I wasn't sure what the procedures were for our team's ops volunteers as opposed to what I usually do when I arrive for a regular call-out. But two, more experienced ops leaders walked in within minutes and put me to work. Then our coordinator returned and gave us a short briefing.

While I shouldn't... well, can't give many details about the search (I have to remind myself of that sometimes), I can say it was fun (probably politically incorrect but true) coming up with various scenarios and working on plans for the search.

Shortly after our SAR coordinator had briefed us on the situation, I'd been instructed to call one of our volunteers who lives in the area of this search, which was a good distance from our base in Flagstaff. This searcher is often notified directly when there's SAR activity in his neck of the woods, so he can get a head start as he did this time, heading out to meet with the RP (reporting party) and drive some roads in the area. He knows those roads well.

Next, I helped prepare a briefing packet for the initial response, and then several of us leaned over maps spread out on the conference room table, at times our heads nearly touching. Cellphone information was plotted on those maps, fingers followed contour lines and Forest Service roads, distances were measured, and scenarios were hashed out and re-hashed.

Not long before the general call-out was made to the rest of the team, two of the ops leaders, also regular members of the unit like I am, left for the search area. They would eventually rendezvous with our volunteer already there and assist with the "route and location search," which is what we're calling a hasty search nowadays, based on what we'd come up with as the most likely places the subject might be found.

I'm happy to report that the information gathered in the initial investigation, combined with the scenarios and plans formulated back at the SAR building and the quick response from our volunteer in the area, the subject was located and in good condition.

I was also able to attend the next call for ops leaders just days later to discuss a potentially very complex search in remote, rugged terrain. I didn't say much at that meeting, except when asked directly for my opinion, but I found it really interesting to listen the other, more experienced ops leaders and law enforcement/SAR personnel talk about scenarios, logistics for getting a large amount of specialized gear and personnel into the area, and weigh the risks against the quality of the information—or lack thereof—that was available so far.

Yep, I really find this SAR Ops stuff fascinating. Although I already knew quite well what goes on behind the scenes of a SAR mission and what's involved in more extensive, multi-operational-period and multi-agency missions, the ops classes I've taken have really reinforced that there's so much more to SAR than people just showing up to wander around, looking. The classes also showed how important it is that as many people as possible be trained to work within the Incident Command System, particularly for large, complex situations. This training also drives home the message that taking the time to properly investigate and plan a search, as opposed to just rushing out to the field, can really save time in the end and get the missing subject found sooner than later.

Both paid and volunteer SAR professionals work with the WIN-CASIE computer program during the Inland Search Management class, held in Flagstaff, Arizona

**********

And in other team news...

Our own Cindy McArthur received word from NASAR Canine Committee Chair, Ann Christensen, that her dog, Nitro, who passed away earlier this year, has been selected to receive the NASAR Canine of the Year award. Christensen stated, "This year, we were very fortunate to have a number of deserving canines nominated for this award and the competition this year was stiff and the decision difficult," but, in the end, Nitro was chosen for his years of excellent service to the SAR community.

Nitro will be honored and the award presented at the 2012 NASAR Conference Closing Award Ceremony on Saturday, June 9^th at Lake Tahoe.

Congratulations, Cindy and Nitro!

And speaking of SAR canines...

The 2nd annual Arizona K9 SAR Conference, held here in Flagstaff, AZ, just concluded this past Sunday and, once again, was a great success, with more than 60 handlers and their dogs attending. We're looking forward to more of these educational training events in the future.

SAR While I Was Away

2012-04-06T12:33:00.001-07:00

While I know our SAR coordinator and assistant coordinators have been plenty hard at work, in part with calls that ended up being resolved by deputies and means other than us volunteers, it has been rather slow when it comes to call-outs. Not that that's a bad thing, of course! But there have been some call-outs lately, all of which occurred while I was either in a SAR-related class (Incident Command System 300) or while I was away for eight blissful days at Yosemite National Park.

First, there was the call for another body recovery below Midgley Bridge in Sedona. I say "another" because, sadly, we tend to have several of these calls each year. All but one that I know of since I've been on the team have been suicides, while one near (but not under) the bridge was an accidental fall. In this latest case, it was a 60-year-old woman who had died. See Woman's Body Found Below Midgley Bridge in the Arizona Daily Sun. Several of my teammates responded to this call.

Little Colorado River Gorge

Then there was a technical rescue call for a young man who'd fallen into the Little Colorado River Gorge and broken his leg. After a long wait due to the remoteness of the area and some misinformation from the reporting party about the victim's location, the injured man was eventually short-hauled by helicopter to the rim and then flown to the hospital.

As I was on my way back from the Yosemite trip, a SAR call came through about a missing mule-rider in the Schultz Pass area of the San Francisco Peaks who may also have been injured. The call was for both general (ground) and mounted SAR. I later found out that the missing party showed up at home on his own.

After returning home myself, I happened upon a news story stating that search and rescue volunteers and deputies had been sent to look for a self-reporting lost hiker on Mount Elden, who told the 9-1-1 dispatcher that he'd hurt his ankle and thought he was being stalked by wild animals. Since I never received a call-out message, I'm assuming that certain volunteers who live near Mt. Elden were called directly to make the initial response. Read Drunken Hiker Asks for Rescue to find out how that mission was resolved.

And that's about all the SAR volunteer activity I know of, other than some team trainings, while I was away. In about a week, I'll be tied up again, this time in a five-day Inland Search Management class. Having completed the ICS-300 class last month and some other prerequisites, I've now been added to the ops list and will be called out if operations leaders are needed to prepare for a mission. So, this next class will teach me more about SAR operations and help me contribute. I'm excited!

Have I mentioned lately that I love SAR?

Time to Learn Some SAR Ops

2012-03-12T09:23:00.004-07:00

Now that I'm in my fifth year with Coco SAR, I'm eligible to begin training for SAR ops (ops = operations). I'm pretty excited about this because I love that part of search and rescue. I look forward to helping with things like mapping out and planning a search, allocating resources and personnel, directing SAR members as they show up for a mission as to what needs to be done and what gear needs to be loaded, and assisting with whatever else the coordinator might need when preparing for a mission.

On Tuesday, March 13–15, I'll be taking the Intermediate Incident Command System (ICS) class, which will cover topics such as transfer of command, unified command functions in a multi-jurisdictional or multi-agency incident, ICS forms, resource management, inter-agency mission planning and procurement, and ICS staffing and organization to include reporting, working relationships and information flow.

******

The way it's working these days with our team is that, when the coordinator is contacted about a SAR call, he'll do some initial investigation and then, if necessary (depending on the type of mission it is), call out just those members qualified to help with operations. Whichever "ops leaders" are available at that stage respond to the SAR building to assist. Then, when ready, the coordinator will do a general call-out for the rest of the team, just the technical rescue team, or even specific members with specific skills as the situation may warrant.

Other than the paid coordinators, SAR ops folks are all volunteer members of team. Many are also members of the tech team, and one or two are mounted unit members. Some of those who help with ops have been on the team for many years—more than 25 years in one case—and have taken many different operations courses. I'm looking forward to that type of training, myself.

Sometimes, ops leaders and the coordinator are able to resolve a situation, often with the help of deputies on scene or over the phone with a lost subject, before a general call-out is made, so other volunteers are able to keep doing what they're doing (like sleeping, for one thing) and don't know about the situation until it's discussed at a monthly meeting. It's amazing how many times the coordinator has been "just about to push the button" for a general call-out when the subject has been located or assisted back to safety or a known location by phone. That saves the rest of us a lot of interrupted activities and unnecessary responses. Saves money too, not to mention time for the person/s who needed help in the first place.

Want to know more about Incident Command System training? These classes are part of FEMA's National Incident Management Training Program. Visit the FEMA NIMS Training site.

A Joint Technical Rescue Training with Border Patrol

2012-02-23T20:03:00.001-07:00

That was fun! And it was a challenging exercise, too.

Members of Borstar (which stands for Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue) out of Tucson invited our technical rescue team to join them for some training in Sedona. They'd come up from southern Arizona on Tuesday to work on wilderness survival and high-angle rescue skills, setting up camp in a beautiful spot overlooking red rock country.

On Wednesday morning, those of us from Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue who were available to participate drove down to meet them, and after introductions were made around their morning campfire and breakfast and coffee were consumed, we moved to the site of the day's tech training: the canyon at Midgely Bridge.

The goal for the day was to set up a high line across the canyon, then do some evolutions with a rescuer on the line, sending that brave soul out to the middle of the canyon, lowering and then raising the rescuer, and then hauling him or her back to one side of the canyon or the other. (I heard some onlookers refer to what we were setting up as a "zip line," but that's something quite different. We certainly didn't want to send anyone zipping anywhere.)

The first part of the operation was a real challenge, given that we didn't have one of those guns that shoots rope. (I've not seen one in action yet, but I've heard about this piece of equipment several times—every time we have to haul rope from one side of a canyon to another.) Once the rope, the track line, had been secured on the "near side" of the canyon, a Borstar member rappelled to the bottom, brought the rope across, and hooked it up to a line sent down from the "far side," so the other end of the rope could be raised and anchored over there. Problem was, there were trees in the way, and the rope had to clear those trees. And it was a lot of rope. The canyon was just shy of 300 feet from rim to rim.

No one was in a big rush, but it took quite a long time just to get the rope strung across the canyon. Then came the task of setting up the anchors, the artificial high directionals on both sides, the tag lines, and the hoist line. Issues were discussed (i.e., the angle of the monopod and guiding lines), and the teams on either side hiked around to the opposite rim via the bridge to inspect the other team's setup before any evolutions took place.

Finally, it was time to send someone across, down, up, and over. Some challenges were had along the way, but in the end, everything was done safely and successfully.

Here are some more photos from our fun day of training. (Some of my teammates went back to Sedona for a second day of joint training with Borstar.)...

One of my teammates helps Borstar members put together the monopod.

Getting some good shots of the system.

Putting together the final touches, like the big Kootenay pulley on the track line.

A rescuer is sent out over the canyon.

The rescuer is lowered mid-canyon, then raised and hauled to the other side.

A Happy Surprise in Waterholes Canyon

2012-02-21T11:04:00.004-07:00

Once upon a time, there was a man in a canyon. Well, not just in a canyon, stuck in a canyon. This was a very deep and narrow canyon, and the man had been stuck down there for four days and three nights. Three very cold nights, that is, with little to protect him from the elements but a thin jacket and leaves he stuffed in his shirt. A winter storm had visited the area while he was down there, alone.

The man, a traveler from Europe, had run out of water in his Camelbak, probably on the first day. He had no food. He'd injured his left ankle, which was severely swollen, and had bad rope burns on his hands. By the fourth morning, he'd given up hope and "made peace," he later said. He knew he would not survive another night.

But he did! Thankfully, the cards were in his favor, as was his own strength, so he spent that fourth night in a warm bed instead of freezing, thirsty, hungry, and possibly dying in that canyon.

The man had entered the canyon on Friday. His flight home left from Las Vegas without him on Saturday. (Good thing it was that soon because no one may have realized he was missing until he missed that plane.) On Sunday, his wife had called for help when her husband failed to return, and that call for help was relayed to the Coconino County Sheriff's Department.

In the wee hours of the morning on Monday, the man's vehicle was located at the top of the slot canyon, in a pull-out along the highway south of Page, Arizona. The search and rescue team was called out at about 4 a.m., and north we went from Flagstaff. It didn't look good for the man we had to assume was somewhere in that big canyon, with many rappels, one about 400 feet in vertical length, between the highway and the Colorado River.

But then things took a turn... for the much better: A deputy walking the rim and calling out in the dark heard a voice answer from below. That great news was quickly relayed to our team as we drove, and the mood changed. Approximate coordinates were called in by the deputy on scene to our coordinator in another vehicle and transmitted from our coordinator to us.

Then our teammate in the passenger seat, an expert canyoneer very familiar with this canyon, plotted those coordinates on the map, knowing it was not possible to pinpoint the man's exact location by voice contact alone. Given a good idea of where he was, however—although he could have been at the top of a rappel or at the bottom—rescue scenarios were hashed out and re-hashed among us. Everything would depend, of course, on the man's actual location in the canyon and his physical condition.

The rescue could not have gone more smoothly. Two of my teammates and a medic from Page Fire Department entered Waterholes Canyon via a known "escape route" not far from where voice contact had been made from the rim. Carrying medical and warm-up gear, extra food and drinks (including some water I'd boiled for hot cocoa), they made their way down and then up-canyon toward the subject.

Meanwhile, the rest of us came up with a backup plan in case the man needed to be raised out of the canyon with a technical rope rescue system. The DPS helicopter had landed, and the pilot and medic stood by.

Regarding the helicopter crew, they'd flown over the canyon and spotted the man, but they would not have been able to short-haul him from his current location. The canyon was too deep and narrow. And given the fact that the man was standing and waving his arms, the added risk of performing a short-haul, had one even been possible, was deemed unnecessary. The man would either be assisted out by rescuers under his own power, or he would be "packaged" in either a litter or a harness and raised out of the canyon with an attendant.

As it turned out, the man, perhaps somewhat aided by adrenaline, was able to tough out his injuries and exit the canyon via the escape route, with the help of the three rescuers. As his head popped up over the rim, we all saw a big smile on his face, and we all smiled, too.

Joel and Mike get geared up and ready to go into the canyon.

Jeff from Page Fire looks down at the deputy on the rim.

Rescuers wait for word from those descending to the subject.

DPS Ranger out of Tucson arrives on scene.


Our team's Polaris UTV with Mattrax is very useful in this rugged terrain.

******

And in other recent Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue news...

There was a mission in Meadow Canyon, a moderately technical canyon south of Flagstaff. This was a search for two overdue canyoneers. (Canyon rescues seem to be... rather, I would say are on the increase in the area.) I was unable to respond to this call, which came in the middle of the night, because I couldn't leave my sick pup (who's now fine, thankfully). But a teammate gave me the scoop. He said...

"I went on that call last night thinking it would last maybe 6 to 8 hours (I had a job lined up at noon) and instead it lasted 16 hours. A couple guys in their early 40s were overdue from a canyoneering trip. Eight of us tried all night to find roads that would take us to the edge of the canyon but with no luck. The back roads were muddy, icy and snow covered.

"The helicopter saw the subjects' campfire and got their coordinates, but we still couldn't get to them. With daylight, a radio was dropped to them and they claimed they were too tired and cold to go further and were afraid of the almost 100-yard swim in from of them.

"We talked about sending two people in by helicopter to help swim and hike them out but opted instead for a short haul. The chopper was low on fuel, so the subjects were flown just to the rim, and we had to pick them up via UTV and ATV. The road was strewn with boulders, mud and snow, and it took a couple of hours. On the way back, the ATVs got stuck in the snow a number of times. It was a long day, but the subjects were very thankful."

So, good, another happy ending!

******

Need a new read? My novel "I. Joseph Kellerman" (which has nothing at all to do with SAR) is available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback. Thanks for putting up with my blatant plug.

Being a K-9 Backer -- A Search Near Wapatki

2012-01-23T10:30:00.004-07:00

View of the San Francisco Peaks from Wapatki National Monument

The first call-out happened not long after I'd gone to bed. It was sleeting, and the roads were icy. Earlier that evening, I'd been reading online about lots of accidents in the area, and I knew my car was not adequate for driving in those conditions. So, I decided to stay home. That's never an easy decision for me.

At 5:45 the next morning, another call-out came through for a second operational period. The missing person hadn't been located during the hasty search overnight. Knowing I really didn't want to miss another call, my boyfriend kindly offered to drive me to the SAR building in his truck. Good thing because the roads were still very icy.

As I was getting ready for this winter weather mission, my phone rang again. It was our K9 handler, Cindy, asking if I'd be her backer as I've done a number of times now. I didn't hesitate. I really enjoy working with Cindy and her dogs. We'd meet at the SAR building and head out to the search area as quickly as possible, before the rest of the team, to get a head start so the dogs could do some searching before there were additional humans and their scents in the area.

When I'm backing the K9 team, I'm responsible for navigation and radio communication while I help Cindy keep an eye on the dogs (she often uses all three of her current search dogs at the same time) and do my own searching, too.

I also help Cindy decide the best way to search our assigned area. Sometimes, the Incident Commander asks us what we think the best area and search strategy would be, so we put our heads together and hash out ideas, taking into account wind direction (related to the dogs' ability to scent a subject), terrain, and what we know about the missing person's actions and the point last seen (PLS).

In this case, we were searching for a missing woodcutter. He'd disappeared around 4:30 p.m. the day before, walking away from his two companions during very cold and windy conditions. It had gotten even colder with precipitation overnight. The other two men, who hadn't seen their friend's direction of travel when he wandered away, stayed in the area for a while, searching, then left and called for assistance.

So, we knew basically where to begin—the general area along a Forest Service road on BLM land, just outside of Wapatki National Monument—but not a specific point. No footprints had been found by trackers during the overnight hasty search, so we still had no direction of travel. The area is mostly cinder-covered with lots of pinon pine and juniper (much more than what's shown in the photo above). Cindy and I noted that our own footprints were very clear in the cinders, so we knew that the subject's would be as well.

Cindy tested the wind direction with her little bottle of baby powder. She does this frequently as we search with the dogs, since wind direction can change quickly. We also discussed where to search and what to use as boundaries in this very open area. We noted power lines both on the map and in the field, along with two-track roads we could use. We would also use random GPS coordinates to create the area for our grid search.

At this point, given what we knew, we agreed that walking tight grids would be best, in case the subject were unresponsive (i.e., due to hypothermia or worse).

As we were getting our packs together and putting the harnesses with GPSes on the dogs, word came over the radio that the missing subject had just called a family member on his cellphone, saying he was very cold and trying to walk toward Wapatki Road. He was alive! Unfortunately, the phone call was dropped and no further contact had been made. Cell service was very sketchy out there, and I had none at all.

Wapatki Road surrounds the area in a big loop. So, the subject could have been walking in any direction toward this "catch feature." And we still had no idea where he was, so his distance from the road could potentially have been a very long way. But now that we knew he was alive and moving, Cindy and I agreed to make our grid passes with the dogs much wider.

Based on wind direction and given the area the DPS helicopter had been flying over as we'd been en route and getting ready, we decided on the area we'd search. We got moving at a pretty good clip, the dogs running and weaving, working excitedly. Cindy and I called and whistled for the subject as we watched the dogs for any sign they were working scent.

I glanced at my GPS now and then, to make sure we were making relatively parallel grids, letting Cindy know if she should angle a bit more to the left or right. I stayed a bit behind her and several paces to her side, keeping downwind of the dogs so my scent wouldn't interfere. I also let Cindy know when it was time to turn around for the next pass.

After about two hours of searching in long, wide grids and yelling and whistling, I called in to base. We'd not heard any radio traffic for a long while. Had any additional contact been made with the subject? Were the other searchers in the area yet?

As a matter of fact, the reply was: "The subject has been located. You can return to base."

It was a lengthy walk from our current location back to our vehicle, and I now noticed how tired I was from walking on cinders. (I don't notice fatigue as much when I'm actually searching.) The dogs, though, were still full of energy and still searching for human scent on the way back. To them, it's all a fun game.

When we met back up with IC, we learned that the subject had been found along a Forest Service road (not the paved Wapatki Road) a good distance away from the area we'd been searching and in a direction the dogs could not have detected his scent on the wind. Still, we felt we'd done the best we could and made a good strategy decision based on what we'd known, which wasn't much, when we'd begun searching. Cindy and I were glad we'd had a chance to work together again.

Recent SAR Activity

2011-12-28T17:26:00.001-07:00

I haven't posted in awhile, but that's not for lack of SAR activity. Although it's been slower than last year at this time when it comes to call-outs, there have been missions lately. It's just that, unfortunately for a writer-type like me, there have been a couple of recent missions I've participated in that I'm not able to write about due to their ongoing and, you might say, legally sensitive nature.

But... I can tell you about a few other missions, none of which I've been able to respond to myself. Two of those calls happened Wednesday, as I sat here with a nasty head cold and sore throat. Woe is me. So, my teammates filled me in...

A Bitter Cold Search on the North Rim

This search occurred a few days before Christmas. The call-out, which came at 3 a.m., was about a track hoe driver who didn't return from moving his machine from one area to another near the North Rim of Grand Canyon.

Searchers towed the team's snowcat and four snowmobiles a few hours from Flagstaff to Jacob Lake and then another 20 miles toward the Grand Canyon on Highway 67. They stopped at a side road the missing subject was reportedly on and sent in the 'cat, with the snowmobiles on standby. In about a mile, the 'cat found the track hoe with the driver inside, cold but otherwise in good shape. He had gotten low on fuel and stopped after midnight.

SAR volunteers were then told two of the subject's fellow employees had taken a Jeep to go look for him, so when the DPS helicopter arrived on scene, our coordinator directed the aircraft to look for their vehicle. The crew spotted the unoccupied vehicle and one subject a few miles away, walking toward the track hoe, so SAR volunteers in the snowcat went back in and picked him up. Turns out, he was the only one in the Jeep.

It was bitterly cold out there, below zero with the wind chill, so searchers were glad to wrap things up.

A Joint Search for a Missing Hiker in Yavapai County

At 6 a.m. on the morning of Wednesday, December 28th, our technical/mountain rescue team was called to assist the Yavapai County team with a search for an overdue 21-year-old hiker, last seen on Tuesday at around noon in steep, rugged terrain near the Village of Oak Creek.

That hiker was Mahdi Harrizi, visiting the area with his family from New York. Mahdi's mother called for help at about 4 p.m. on Tuesday, after her son called her from his cellphone, saying he was stranded on a ledge near Castle Rock.

According to reports, Mahdi had taken a trail from behind the resort where they were staying. At the time his mother made the call for help, she had been able to see him up at the top of the mountain.

Searchers from Yavapai County arrived on scene soon after, just as the sun was setting, but Sheriff's deputies were unable to get a GPS coordinate on Mahdi's cell phone because of the remote location. Ground searchers and a Department of Public Safety helicopter crew looked for Mahdi throughout the night and then called Coconino County SAR for assistance.

From what I heard, just after the DPS helicopter dropped off more technical rescue SAR members at the top of the mountain at about 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday and were flying off, the crew spotted Mahdi's body between a sheer cliff and some shrubs. Sheriff’s officials stated that Harrizi apparently fell about 150 feet, and he may have fallen shortly after his conversation with his mother.

Here's a photo from one of my teammates who was at the top of the mountain....

From One Mission to Another

At 4 p.m. on the 28th, we received another call-out. This was another mission down in Sedona for a stranded climber. Additional technical rescue team members as well as general SAR were asked to respond, to assist the other tech team members already en route from the day's first mission to the next.

I don't yet have any details about what happened, but I'll fill in you once I do.

And now that I'm just about over this creeping crud I've had for several days, I've got my SAR gear ready to respond if... well, when we get another call.

Coconino County SAR Celebrates it's New Home

2011-12-12T18:23:00.001-07:00

On Saturday, December 10th, a gathering of search and rescue volunteers, Sheriff's Office personnel, folks from the Department of Public Safety, Guardian Medical Transport, local fire departments, the Park Service and Forest Service, Sheriff's Posse volunteers, members of the County Board of Supervisors, friends and family and members of the public celebrated the Grand Opening of the new Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue facility, which is located behind the law enforcement complex in Flagstaff.

This new building houses all of our team's SAR equipment, including our technical rescue gear, snow and ice and medical equipment, a fleet of snowmobiles and ATVs, a snow cat and other search and rescue vehicles, communications equipment, water rescue equipment, and more.

The facility now also brings our meetings, trainings, and coordination under that same roof. This means more efficiency and even faster response times, since the team will no longer be operating between this new building and the main law enforcement building across the parking lot.

According to yesterday's article in the Arizona Daily Sun, construction on the new search and rescue facility began back in 2004, when the pavement was first poured. But that construction stalled soon afterward when financing dried up, and the actual structure wasn't completed until 2008. At that time, our team was able to move the equipment from its long-standing location on the east side of town at the county yard to the new west-side facility, making our response to call-outs more convenient for most of us.

From that point until just a few days ago, however, we'd been operating out of a shell of a building, with our coordinator and map-printing capabilities over in the Sheriff's Office, which meant that preparing to deploy for a mission was what you might call a fragmented operation. Not so any longer, thanks to additional funding of this project by the County Board of Supervisors, enabling the completion of the administrative side of the building. There's still work to be done, including the installation of a sixth bay door, a mezzanine, a climbing wall for training, and the paving of the exterior parking area, but that will happen over time.

On Saturday, SAR members were on hand to answer questions about our equipment, including a new Humvee from the Arizona National Guard, and our training program. Lunch was followed by comments from Sheriff Bill Pribil, members of the Board of Supervisors, and our team captain, Andrew Moore, and then a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Here are some photos from the event...

The new sign

Our snow cat, some quads, and our new Hummer in the back

A gift from the National Guard

The huge bay where we store team equipment and vehicles.

Technical rescue and snow & ice equipment (and a rescue dummy)

The new communications room

The new meeting and training room with flat screen monitors

The kitchen, for events and to feed volunteers during big incidents

Our team captain cuts the ribbon as the Sheriff and many others look on

A Passing Motorist Brings a Search to a Close

2011-11-22T09:49:00.002-07:00

The man we were looking for had been missing for three days, having failed to show up at a prearranged rendezvous time after another of his many camping and "walkabout" trips in this area he knew well. I know I wasn't alone in my assumption that he wasn't "just" lost.

Hypothermia was a possibility. It had rained some in the past couple of days, and the subject apparently wasn't well prepared for the cold, wet weather. Injury was another possible scenario, as was a potential miscommunication with the family member who'd gone back to get him on Saturday. Based on information we were given in our briefing prior to starting the search, we had reason to believe this may have been the case—that he had decided to stay out there longer but failed to contact his ride about his change of plans. Given the weather, though, and the fact that he wasn't properly equipped, our SAR coordinator decided to call out the team to look for him sooner than later.

The subject had also made prior statements about taking his own life, so that too was on our minds.

We had been divided into teams of two, in this case one experienced member with one new member as the split was pretty much down the middle. It was good to see so many new SAR teammates from the latest academy come out for the search.

We were all in or on vehicles—SUVs, trucks, quads, and the UTV—slowly driving unpaved roads and two-tracks, looking for the missing man's campsite and any other clues that might be associated with him, not to mention the man himself. We'd been told he preferred to stick to walking roads as opposed to traveling cross-country, so that's what we were starting with.

As always, we were scanning the landscape and looking for any sign of tracks or clues, hoping to get a direction of travel. The team did find a number of things—the campsite, prints, a jacket—which turned out to be related to our subject.

But the search lasted only a couple of hours from the time we reached the area and deployed. A 9-1-1 call from a motorist on westbound I-40 about 21 miles east of Flagstaff, several miles from where we'd begun our search at the man's last known location, reported seeing what she thought was a body hanging from a billboard. It was difficult to see from the highway, so I'm thinking the person who spotted the lower portion of the man's body behind the billboard was an observant passenger.

Soon, Sheriff's deputies and SAR personnel confirmed the body as that of 39-year-old Stephen Dale Sterling, bringing our search to an end. See the story in the Arizona Daily Sun.

Searching for Justin

2011-11-07T09:08:00.003-07:00

With my left set of fingertips gripping a tiny, sharp ridge of (hopefully) embedded volcanic rock above me, my left foot perched on a small piece of (hopefully) embedded rock below, and my free hand and foot groping for something solid, I tentatively glanced down over my left shoulder. I decided there was no way I could safely go back the way I'd just come up, and I was doubtful about moving on.

The steep wall of the canyon was covered in loose cinder, and I couldn't know for sure if the pieces of rock I wasn't quite able to reach were loose or solidly attached. Judge incorrectly or make a wrong move, and I was going for a fast ride down that cinder slide and over that ledge down there. That's what I was envisioning, anyway.

Crap. Not the kind of pickle I want to find myself in. And my two more confident teammates knew it. Every other word of mine was a bad one at that point.

So, you see, we'd completed our assignment, having been inserted into the Little Colorado River gorge by helicopter several hours earlier, exiting the DPS aircraft as the rotors continued to spin and kick up sand. We'd searched the far side of the river, which was flowing pretty well at the time, overlapping the point where another team had been inserted further upstream.

We then forded the river at a wide, shallow (and slippery) area, and searched the opposite bank back the way we'd come. We'd been careful to look at piles of river debris from past flooding and kept an eye on the mud and shallow parts of the river for anything unusual that might be sticking out. We'd searched the shores, including small caves and crevices and vegetation that could potentially catch and hide human remains.

We were looking for any sign of 40-year-old Justin Brian Hall, an avid outdoorsman, former Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, and climber, who'd disappeared from a friend's home where he'd been house-sitting in the very rural area near Sheba Crater and the border of the Navajo Reservation more than a month earlier.

This was a continuation of the ongoing search, which had already extensively covered a one-mile radius around the house and well beyond, following up on tips and suggestions from locals and Justin's family and friends. Nothing at all had turned up that would indicate a destination or direction of travel.

This is the house where Justin had been staying....

Now searching about 10 miles (as the crow flies) from Justin's last known location, where his vehicle and belongings remained, ground teams were covering several miles along the Little Colorado River. A K9 team, with me as one of the backers, had already searched the area just below and partway up Grand Falls at an earlier date, but it was being searched again on this day.

We were looking not only for human remains but possibly a couple of items believed to be in Justin's possession at the house but yet were unaccounted for, as well as any type of clue or sign that could potentially be linked to him. We found nothing.

Here are a couple of photos from our earlier search at Grand Falls with the dogs....

This is us searching partway up the falls, on a ledge.

Today, by the time our field team of three returned to where we'd been dropped off at the bottom of the canyon several miles downstream from Grand Falls, the DPS crew had been reassigned and left the area. So, our options were to climb out on our own or... yeah, that was about it. We could do that either somewhere near where we were or turn around and hike all the way back to Grand Falls, where we knew there was a trail to the rim. Or perhaps find a good place to climb out along the way.

We chose to find a route near where we were, but, looking up, it was difficult to tell how it would go. For the most part, the climb turned out to be steep (obviously), and the rocks and sparse vegetation were sharp, but it was otherwise okay... except for a couple of spots, like the one I described above, where I was temporarily frozen. And stopping one's momentum in sketchy spots doesn't exactly help matters. I could feel myself slipping every second I stayed in place.

Thankfully, my teammates stationed themselves in spots below and above me, which gave me just enough confidence to move from those precarious locations. After anchoring himself as best he could, one of my companions offered me an outstretched wrist to reach for in case I needed it (which thankfully I didn't). My feet slipped as I practically threw myself across to the closest stable spot.

Eventually, the climb turned into a heart-pounding, steep scramble up a volcanic scree slope, but the scary stuff was over. Here's Keith at the top of the cinder slope....

Once at the top, we began walking toward base as we waited for someone to reach us by vehicle for a ride back.

********

Since that day about two weeks ago, the team hasn't been called upon again to search for Justin, who is still missing and very much missed by his family, many of whom are back east.

And here are two photos of Grand Falls, the first one taken on the day I just described. It was running quite a bit more than it had been about 10 days earlier, when I'd gone there to search with the K9 team. The next photo was taken during spring runoff a few years ago. When Justin Hall went missing in mid-September, the Little Colorado was flowing at a much higher level than it was in the top photo but not as much as the lower...

Back in 30 Minutes Turns Into Back in 18 Hours

2011-10-19T09:37:00.002-07:00

She left her boyfriend's house at 9:30 in the morning, saying she was going for a short walk to "the point" and would be back in half an hour (the point referred to a known location not far from the house). At about 7:00 that night, our team was called to go look for her. A witness's likely sighting of the subject at about that time gave SAR a place to begin the search, up on Anderson Mesa near the observatory.

This was one of those cases in which the missing person wasn't necessarily lost and might not want to be found. But we couldn't be sure of that, and there was always the possibility, even if that were the case, she may have gotten injured or otherwise into trouble out there.

So, the search began, first with the K9 team sweeping the area and other searchers driving Forest Service roads and two-tracks. After the dogs had a chance to search the perimeter of the point last seen (PLS) without others on foot contaminating the area, two of us set out on the Arizona Trail.

My search partner and I hiked more than eight miles that night, tracking, calling the subject's name, scanning the moonlit surroundings with our headlamps. But all we heard in response to our calls were elk bugling (which sometimes sounded like talking, sometimes crying, and sometimes all sorts of other things), and all we saw in the beams of our headlamps were the glowing eyes of critters and the white stripes on four skunk tails, two of which went up in alarm. We're quite sure that one set of moving eyes was a mountain lion.

After a while, moonlit stumps began to look like human forms.

There wasn't much traffic over the radio that night other than an occasional status (or welfare) check by incident command with a Code 4 ("we're okay") response and a current location from the field team being called. Other than the vocal elk and the infrequent, distant sound of a vehicle passing on Lake Mary Rd., it was a quiet night.

Tired from those miles of hiking on rocky trail and even rockier Forest Service Roads, my partner and I walked back into base at about 1:30 a.m., where we found the K9 team and other searchers. Negative contact all around. We were dismissed from duty, and home we went, expecting another call-out for fresh searchers to come by 4 a.m.

But that call never came. We later learned that the missing woman had shown up back at her boyfriend's house at 3:30 a.m.

Oh well. It was pretty cool being out there at night... even if we were being stalked by a mountain lion. I doubt I'd ever wake up, comfortable in my bed in the middle of the night, and say, "Hey, I think I'll go for a moonlight hike on Anderson Mesa." So, this search for someone who apparently wasn't in distress at least got me some exercise and a neat outdoor experience. Just glad it didn't get me sprayed by a skunk.

And in other Coconino County SAR news...

The team has been busy with other recent missions, including a body recovery at Midgley Bridge in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona. In this case, the victim was a 30-year-old California woman whose body was discovered by two hikers. I believe this is the fourth recovery at Midgley Bridge this year.

The team also spent a couple of days out near Sheba Crater, searching for a man missing for more than a month. Justin Brian Hall, 40, was last seen on Sept. 7th at a home on Leupp Road near milepost 442, just west of the Navajo Reservation. He was housesitting for a friend at the time, and his vehicles and belongings were found at that home. Hall is said to be an experienced outdoorsman, an avid hiker and a rock-climbing enthusiast.

While this search was underway, other members of the team participated in an evidence search near Seligman.

Search and rescue volunteers also assisted with parking and traffic control at the funeral of Flagstaff Police Chief Brent Cooper who died unexpectedly on Sunday morning, October 9th, while jogging with his loyal dog, Winston, near Fort Tuthill. Winston remained with the chief until he was found that afternoon. Chief Cooper served with the department for 33 years.

And, most recently, five members of the technical rescue team assisted a stranded hiker above "the Waterfall" on Mt. Elden.

Missing at The Wave

2011-09-30T16:18:00.003-07:00

I'm leaning over the steering wheel, fighting the sleepies while my teammate snoozes in the passenger seat. (Looks like he's going to have a stiff neck when he wakes up.) But no, I'm not scribbling with one hand while driving with the other; I'm composing a blog post in my head to help me stay awake.

Let's see, I haven't slept in (calculating...) about 30 hours, and we've still got a few hours left to go before we get back to Flagstaff. I probably should pull over somewhere and do a wake-up jig.

Anyway, last night—or was it the day before? No, it was last night. So, I had just finished watching a movie—can't even remember which one right now—and crawled into bed when the text message came in: "Missing hiker at The Wave, near the Utah border. Respond to the SAR building to depart at 1 a.m."

A minute or so later, the voice mail came through. By then, I'd decided to go, so I called in and left my "number 6-2-0, Deb responding" message. Turned out that just two other team members responded to the call-out, one of whom is not really a hiker anymore. But he did come along to accompany our coordinator in his vehicle, to help him drive and assist with Incident Command. No one else responded after the second and third call-outs.

So, northward the four of us went in our two vehicles, with Dennis and me in the pickup full of tech gear, just in case. (We take technical rescue equipment and the Stokes litter on all missions.) It was still dark when we turned onto House Rock Valley Rd. and bumped our way along to the trailhead for The Wave and Buckskin Gulch, the world's longest slot canyon. I'd been there before, a couple of years ago. Dennis had been there several years before that.

Okay, I admit it: I did nod off a bit on the ride up, since I was the passenger then.

Anyhow... the missing hiker we were looking for was a 70-year-old man, a geologist who must have been thrilled to be exploring this natural wonder when he told his three companions he was going from The Wave over to the nearby Wave II formation and would be back in 15 minutes. Four hours later, his friends had decided to go look for him. That was yesterday afternoon.

So, here's a picture of the Wave II. Pretty cool, huh?

We were given a description of what the man was wearing (which turned out to be incorrect, actually), and as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, the two of us searchers started off down the wash for the three-mile hike to The Wave and the subject's last known point (LKP).

Searching and calling along the way, we detoured a bit to a slot canyon, where we made voice contact with a man we couldn't see.

"Hello!" we called.
"Hello?" he answered. He sounded cautious.
"Are you [insert subject's name]?" Dennis asked.
No response.
"We're with Search and Rescue," I then called down into the canyon. "We're looking for [subject]."
No response.
"Are you the lost person we're looking for?"
"We're just hiking," came the man's reply from below.

And that was it. He didn't answer us again. Hmm. Might have been someone (or two people maybe, because he had said "we") out there without the required permit. Maybe that's why he'd been reluctant to talk to us.

And onward Dennis and I went, climbing up and over and around rock formations and trudging across sand. It had quickly gone from very chilly to very hot, and I made a big dent in my water supply early on.

When we got close to The Wave, at the base of the sand dune we'd have to climb to get up there, we decided to first search a slot canyon to the west of The Wave and below Wave II. We figured the likelihood of the missing hiker actually being at either formation was slim, given that there were already other people at those locations who'd have run into him. (We'd seen them along the route and talked to a few of them.)

We also wondered if perhaps the subject had fallen into the canyon we were about to search, since there certainly are fall hazards. So, we turned west and entered the narrow canyon to search from below.

Here's a glimpse of that canyon. The Wave II was way up above, to the left...

In the meantime, a fixed-wing aircraft, flown by the Kane County, Utah, SAR coordinator was searching from high overhead. Then a DPS helicopter arrived to fly lower than the plane. We heard the rotors nearby as we made our way further into the canyon.

Eventually, Dennis and I got cliffed out in the canyon, and it was too sketchy to go up and around to the side in order to continue on. So, we decided to go back to that sand dune below The Wave, ascend and head over to the Wave II, and then try to get back down into the slot canyon from above, bypassing the obstacle we'd run into. Dennis had done that before, years ago, and he recalled that there was a way to do it safely.

But we didn't get quite that far. After trudging up the sandy incline and across the slickrock shelf, then down to where we could see our re-entry into the slot canyon, we heard through the static on our radios that the subject had been located by the helicopter crew, and they'd soon be landing to pick him up.

Turns out, the missing hiker was up, not down—that somehow he'd scrambled to the top of the mesa above The Wave and was stuck up there. I really don't know exactly how he ended up where he did, when the Wave II is so easy to find coming from The Wave. (Must have gone walk-about to explore some more and gotten himself misplaced.) In any case, he was in good shape, in part thanks to water pockets he'd been able to drink from, and good spirits, as were his three friends when hot and tired Dennis and I arrived back at base.

And now I'm really looking forward to a hot shower. The soft bed will have to wait awhile, though, because as tired as I am, I can never seem to sleep in the middle of the day. I'll just be glad to get out of this truck.

Welcoming New Team Members and Saying Goodbye to Another

2011-09-27T07:13:00.001-07:00

The annual Basic Search & Rescue Academy is underway, with 18 new members taking classes in skills such as personal safety, map and compass, GPS navigation, ATV operation, and tracking, with a mock search to be held at the end of the two-month training.

Once students have completed the academy, including two Incident Command System tests, they'll be added to the call-out list and be eligible to respond to missions.

Sadly, as we welcome new members to the Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue team, we're also mourning the loss of another, a four-legged team member named Nitro. Nitro, whose nickname was Peedles, was the oldest and most experienced of handler Cindy McArthur's four SAR dogs, and he did his job enthusiastically and with energy till the day before he suddenly succumbed to previously undetected liver cancer earlier this month. Nitro was 10 years old.

A NASAR-certified search dog cross-trained in area search (for live subjects) and HRD (human remains detection), Nitro had three live finds and three HR finds on missions during his career and countless other successful finds during trainings as often as three times per week.

Among his mission finds were a teen on the autism spectrum; an 83-year-old man with dementia who'd been missing for more than 40 hours; the verified location of the scent of human remains in a closet three years after the body had been removed, which led to the killer's arrest; and the location of eigh human bones buried in a pack rat's nest. Earlier this year, Nitro located two lost hikers in the San Francisco Peaks and also found a smear of blood on a pair of pants inside a locked trunk, later determined to be human blood through the use of Luminal by the Coconino Sheriff's Office CSI Team.

Nitro received the 2005 Search & Rescue Dog of the Year award from the Association of Pet Dog Trainers and, in the same year, the Kingman Police Department Excellence Award for assistance in a homicide case, which he shared with Radar, another of Cindy's search dogs. Nitro also received the Good Gun Foundation Award for Search Dog Unit in 2007.

As Cindy said, "[Nitro] was the best SAR dog any handler could dream for, and I will miss him dearly. Our SAR unit has lost one of it's most dedicated members."

Having worked with Nitro as Cindy's backer and also as a lost subject for her dogs, I too will miss sweet, loyal Nitro.

******

The search and rescue community recently lost another member of its family, DPS helicopter pilot Matthew Uhl who was killed in a car accident on September 20th when the vehicle he was driving was struck head-on by a Ford Explorer moving at a high rate of speed as the driver may have been attempting to pass other vehicles. Matthew was deceased on scene.

A DPS Pilot since 2006, Matthew Uhl operated the Bell 407 Ranger Air Rescue and was assigned to the DPS Central Air Rescue Unit in Phoenix. At the time of his death, he was en route to cover a shift in Kingman as part of the DPS Western Air Rescue.

On February 20, 2010, Matt Uhl and DPS Officer/Paramedic Eric Tarr rescued three-year-old Victoria Bensch who had been missing for nearly 15 hours after she wandered away from her Cordes Lakes home.

Uhl was also the pilot who flew the short-haul rescue of the severely injured canyoneer in Insomnia Canyon on August 13th that our team participated in. He will be sorely missed.

See DPS Pilot, Two Others, Killed in Head-On Car Wreck

Body Recovery at Bear Canyon Lake

2011-09-26T09:37:00.001-07:00

Just catching up on some SAR mission stories from the past few weeks, including a call for the technical rescue team at about 7:30 on a Sunday morning for a body recovery—two, unfortunately—at Bear Canyon Lake in the Forest Lakes area. I wasn't able to respond to that call, but a teammate of mine filled me in the next day. This is what he said...

"Six Tech Team members showed up, and because there was rain in the forecast, we loaded all the gear in the back of the Suburban instead of the pickup to ensure the rope stayed dry. We were told that an ATV had gone over a cliff, but as with most rescues, the initial information is often unreliable so we weren't sure how this one would unfold.

"We finally turned toward Bear Canyon Lake on a what was initially a decent dirt road, but it deteriorated quickly. When we arrived at the scene, we found a group of Forest Service and fire hotshot personnel and the Medical Examiner vehicle.

"Below us was an approximately 15-foot-deep ravine with a wrecked ATV and the bodies of two young men in their early 20s lying near it. It's always tragic to see young lives ended much too soon, and I could only imagine the pain the families were feeling.

"We realized we could walk to the scene from the edges of the ravine, so with the help of the hotshots, we transported them up to the road. The Forest Service folks told us this was the 6th fatal ATV accident this year in the Forest Lakes area.

"With our mission complete, we headed back on the dirt road where the suburban suddenly stopped running. We ended up having to load all the gear into the pickup and left the disabled suburban with [our Coordinator and one team member], who waited for the tow truck. When we arrived back at the building, we were all stiff—not from the mission but from the five-and-a-half-hour drive.

"For us, the mission was complete. For the families of the victims, the agony of their loss was just beginning."