That's the question MANY people have been asking for the past ten days. It's the question that's kept me up at night, even when exhausted from another day of searching. And I know that everyone involved in the effort feels the same way. We just want to find Mark--to give this story an ending.
I've started this entry over several times now. While every mission I've been involved with--and there have been about 40 or so in my 16 months on the team--has been unique, this one was especially different for me. Not only did the facts seem to point to a fairly rapid resolution, which didn't happen, but not a single clue was located by search teams on the ground. At least, nothing that panned out. No matter how closely we looked, we didn't come up with a thing. And that feels ... well, really bad.
At the same time, I was seeing Mark's family and friends, also searching along with SAR teams from around the state of Arizona, Forest Service personnel, K-9 teams, Civil Air Patrol and the Department of Public Safety. But it wasn't the lack of a uniform that told me someone was a relative. That was clear to see in their faces, even if they gave us a smile.
Over the past ten days, five of which I was in the field in Forest Lakes, I wanted so much to hear that familiar tone of voice that comes over the radio when a searcher finds something. You can hear it when a SAR member calls Incident Command, and the rest of us stop in our tracks to listen to what will come next. Sadly, that didn't happen this time.
But no ending (yet) doesn't mean there's an end to hope. If you'd read as many Search & Rescue stories as I have in the past year and a half, you know that just about anything can happen. So I'll be keeping Mark Irby and his family in my thoughts and waiting for the day we hear he's been found.
Here's a very good news video about the search: Click here
