Back-to-Back SAR with an Hour Off for Dinner

I had just finished my last bite of dinner when the phone rang: SAR. I'd heard some radio traffic about missing base jumpers earlier in the day while on another mission, but hours had passed with no call-out. I figured the situation had been resolved. I guess not.

The earlier mission had been a rather sedentary one, with a long drive to and from Forest Lakes, the same rural development where we'd searched for Mark Irby for 10 days. This time, our coordinator had requested five volunteers to go down there to assist the dive team from Page, Arizona—the Coconino County Sheriff's Office Underwater Search and Recovery Team from the Page Substation, to be specific—who would be searching a pond for a the body of a man who'd been missing since this past summer. (That initial search had taken place while I was in Nepal.)

I had no idea how we were supposed to help a dive team. We weren't told to wear swimsuits (lucky for me) or bring snorkels, only to check in with the deputy on scene when we arrived.

So, here's what we were instructed to do: Each of us SAR folks would stand on shore, holding a rope. At the other end of a rope would be a diver, holding the rope in his hand, keeping it taut. The ropes would have two purposes:

1. As means of communication between the diver and his partner on shore — One tug meant something, two tugs something else, three yet another message, etc. (things like, stop, go, surface, found something, and so forth). The recipient of the message on the other end of the rope was supposed to repeat the tugs, indicating they'd understood. And the tugs needed to be exaggerated, so the diver and especially the person on shore could differentiate actual communication tugs from involuntary pulls on the rope, like as the diver swam.

2. As a means of keeping the diver on his grid — Each diver would search an area of the pond in a back-and-forth grid pattern. The diver would swim to the outer edge of their area, and then that diver and their partner—the person on shore—would take up any slack in the rope. The rope would be kept taut as the diver went under and searched. After the first pass, the diver would turn around, the person on shore would take in the rope about three feet (that distance determined by the amount of visibility underwater, which was low in this case), and then the diver would swim back the other way, thereby making the second sweep three feet away and parallel to the first one. Then the person on shore would take up another three feet of rope for the diver's next pass and so forth.

Make any sense?

So that's what my teammates and I did for several hours—hold rope, take in rope, and tug if necessary—while the dive team swam back and forth. I sat on shore, then I stood, and I sat and stood some more, trying to stay focused on my job while the warm sun made me sleepy. Our one teammate without a rope to manage periodically delivered drinks and snacks to the rest of us stationed around the pond.

In the end, the divers did a thorough search but found nothing... except some unusually huge crawdads.

So homeward bound we'd headed, listening to the radio traffic along the way. That's when we'd heard about those missing base jumpers.

"What's a base jumper?" I'd asked my friends.

I was told that a base jumper is someone who puts on a parachute and jumps off a cliff.  Oh. Is that, like, fun? Guess it is for some folks, but apparently this particular foursome, who'd jumped into the Little Colorado River Gorge, hadn't planned well for getting out of the canyon once they'd jumped in. Oops.

Base jumpers (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

But there had been no call-out for SAR by the time we returned to the building. So, I headed home, grabbed some microwavable dinner, and had been there for about an hour when the call finally came.

And back to the SAR building I went. I figured this mission might be a bit more on the active side than the first—possibly a tech rescue—and I had plenty of energy in reserve.

As it turned out, the reason for the delay before the call-out was the need for more investigation by the Sheriff's Department to determine where exactly we needed to look. They had received information using base jumper nomenclature, which was not marked on any map. Based on past experience, several areas were checked and the subjects' vehicle eventually located. And then SAR was called.

Apparently, the four young men, ranging in age from 18 to 30, were now a day overdue, the reporting party had said. As I understand it, this was supposed to be a day trip: jump, open parachutes, land, hike out. But I guess the route out, which they'd heard about from someone somewhere, hadn't been so obvious.

As we made the rather long drive from Flagstaff to Cameron and then onto Navajo Reservation land, the four subjects were spotted by the helicopter, climbing out of the canyon... as in, hand-over-hand climbing. They had left their gear, including parachutes and camera equipment, at the bottom. They were also very dehydrated. As SAR was en route, still thinking we'd need to go down to help them out, the helicopter dropped (or lowered... not sure) water to the men.

As we bumped our way along the unpaved roads, the Navajo officer on scene reported that one of the men had made it to the rim. Then another and another and, finally, the fourth. They were all basically okay and apparently wanting to know how they were going to get their gear out of the bottom of the canyon.

From what I heard, what they did get were citations for being on the rez without permits and for "littering" by leaving gear down there.

After waiting to meet up with the four shirtless and shoeless jumpers so our coordinator could take a report, SAR headed for home. I got in sometime around midnight, making it a 19-hour day of SAR with a lotta sittin'.

The Little Colorado River meets up with the Colorado River in Grand Canyon

A Tracking Challenge: Are We Making This Up?

"Are we making this up?" Robert asked, not for the first time that morning, talking to himself again as much as to me.

I stood there, staring at the faint depression in the pine needles.

"I don't think so," I replied without confidence. "I mean, we keep seeing things, and we were sure that was a partial print back there. So, I think we're on the track."

Whether it was the subject's track, though, was another question. We'd been told he was wearing "motorcycle boots," but we weren't sure of the tread and couldn't be sure the information was accurate, either. It would not have been the first time we'd been told a missing person was wearing one kind of shoe only to later find out they were wearing something very different.

We'd been trying to follow whomever's track that was for a couple of hours, starting not far from the campsite the missing man had been sharing with his son, until he walked away from there the day before and failed to return. It was now nearing noon, the worst time of day for tracking with the sun overhead.

We were sure someone had crawled under the barbed wire fence at the bottom of the hill—the grass was flattened, and there was a partial print nearby—and we were pretty sure that same someone had come up to the top of the hill where we were standing. But trying to track through pine needles is a real challenge. Robert and I kept having to kneel down and carefully move the needles out of the way to see if, in fact, that faint impression was indeed a footstep.

Then there were the little holes I saw here and there near the impressions. We'd been told the 77-year-old subject had been carrying a cut-off golf club as a hiking stick. The holes I saw now and then in the small patches of bare dirt seemed kind of small to be made by a cut-off golf club. But, then again, it had rained heavily during the night, and some dirt had probably washed back into the holes. Robert wasn't as convinced as I was that, yes indeed, those were cut-off golf club holes.

As the two of us made slow progress along the track, we heard a couple of our teammates on the radio, also following some tracks. Could we all be on the same track, I wondered, just made at different times and places? Based on their location, I thought it was possible.

As we were tracking, other teams were driving containment on Forest Service roads, a K9 team was in the field, and some folks from our mounted unit were searching on horseback. Other campers and a deputy in the area were also looking for the missing man. Given his age and the fact that he had not been carrying any supplies when he left the day before, I don't think I was the only one concerned about the subject's well-being.

BUT, as it turned out, he was in very good shape when he came walking along the meadow toward camp. Turns out, the man had indeed gotten lost and spent the rest of the day before and all that morning wandering around, trying to find his way back to his camp. He'd spent at least some of the night lying on the ground, trying to sleep. But aside from being a bit dehydrated, he was okay.

Before Robert and I headed back to base to debrief, we did have a chance to look at the subject's boots. Yep, those had been his tracks alright! And it seems that Robert and I were following the same tracks that our teammates had been following, only we were further along in the timeline. (That is, the tracks we were on were more recent.) From what the K9 handler said, the dogs had been showing signs of interest when they'd been getting close to where the man had apparently walked not long before they arrived. So, not only did this search have a positive outcome, but we SAR members also got some positive reinforcement that our skills had been working for us.

Update: The Search for Little Sylar is Over

Just a brief post to share this news with you regarding my earlier entry about two-year-old Sylar Newton, who went missing from the Beaver Creek Campground on July 24th. His skeletal remains were located today.

Read the news on the Arizona Daily Sun site.

I just read in another news story that the remains were found in a wash at about 1 p.m. this afternoon. 

A Search with a Tragic Ending

On Monday evening, August 2, Emmett Trapp's mom awoke from a nap and discovered her two-year-old son, one of her four children, was missing from their home in Dewey, Arizona. After family and neighbors searched the area without luck, they called 9-1-1.

Yavapai County Sheriff's deputies arrived within 10 minutes, and the search quickly expanded to include law enforcement personnel, search and rescue teams from multiple counties, and other citizen volunteers. As of dawn on Wednesday morning, Emmett still had not been found.

Searchers from multiple agencies and counties at base, getting ready to deploy

Our SAR team from Coconino County was called to assist beginning on Wednesday. Two of my teammates and I and three golden retriever area search dogs arrived at Incident Command before 6 a.m. More of our teammates would join the search later that morning, but the three of us wanted to get started with the dogs as early as possible since they work better in the cooler air. When they get too hot, the dogs breathe more through their mouths so their noses can't work as effectively.

Cindy gets her boys ready to go

After checking in at base, we received our assignment and went directly to our search segment. Cindy, our SAR dog handler, determined the direction of the barely detectable breeze with her little bottle of powder, positioned us accordingly for the dogs, then worked with her canine partners while also searching the thick brush herself. Her cross-trained dogs would alert her if they detected human scent, living or not.

The dogs are already working as we head to our assigned segment.

My other partner and I flanked Cindy on either side and slightly behind her, taking care of the navigation and doing our parts in the grid search. We pushed through the tangled mass of cat claw, which grabbed at our clothing and skin, trying our best to stay in formation despite the terrain. A small child could easily crawl under the bushes and be very hard to see.

After we'd covered more than half of our assigned area, another field team of 14 searcher moved into that same segment behind us, walking a grid perpendicular to ours.

View of base from our first assigned search segment on the hill

The media hang out on the periphery of the search area

 

 

 

Eventually, Incident Command gave the three of us a new assignment—to work together as a K-9 team and two human man-trackers—when another field team located what looked like part of a small footprint. So we relocated to the site of that partial print and began to work the track.

We were reassigned again when another field team located fresher footprints, also small and clearly barefoot as Emmett had been reported to be and even further from the Trapps' home than we were. So, we got in our truck and took off to jump ahead of those tracks, which were headed in the direction of the highway. Our assignment was to determine if the tracks crossed beneath the highway, through the culverts. If not, we were told to work in the opposite direction of the team following the track, so we'd be going toward them. Emmett would hopefully be somewhere in the middle.

But the  search came to an end just as we arrived at our new area. Sure enough, Emmett had been between us and the team on the track, who located him. Sadly, little Emmett had not survived.

Back Home And Back To SAR

I hadn't planned to respond to any SAR calls for at least a week after coming home from Nepal. I figured I'd take a little break after being on the other side of the planet for a few months, spend some time catching up on my to-do list, reorganize my SAR pack, and generally just chill out.

But I couldn't resist. A couple of days after I got back, when there was a second call-out within a half hour for more volunteers to assist Yavapai County Search and Rescue with a search for a missing two-year-old, I dialed the SAR line after listening to the message and left one of my own. "This is Deb, number 6-2-0. I'm responding."

The call was for the following morning, to meet at the SAR building at 6 a.m. Soon after getting there, I was headed south to Beaver Creek Campground near Sedona with a teammate from general SAR along with a member of the mounted unit and his horse. Coconino County SAR had been assisting with this search for the previous two days, also.

When we got to the staging area and signed in, the three of us were given our assignment: a rather large, rugged area, thick with cat claw and cactus. One boundary of our search area was the creek that runs alongside the campground from which little Sylar Newton had gone missing in the middle of the night a few days earlier.

We searched as thoroughly as we could all day, doing our best to stay hydrated and focused as we dripped with sweat in the intense heat and humidity. We called in anything we found that we thought had any possibility of being important to the mission, giving a description and coordinates to Incident Command. A deputy came out to inspect and collect some of the items we located.

At the end of day four of the search, Syler was still missing. And he's still missing today, the end of day seven.

While this search was going on, members of our team were also helping in neighborhoods east of Flagstaff impacted by flash flooding. These floods are the result of charred soil on the peaks from the huge Schultz wildfire earlier this summer, unable to absorb all of the monsoon rain. That fire was started by an abandoned campfire and burned more than 15,000 acres. The resulting floods have caused extensive property damage to area residents and one death, when a 12-year-old girl was swept away.

On Thursday and Friday, I responded to more calls for SAR assistance in the flood areas, but my contribution (going door-to-door passing out flood advisory information) was minimal compared to the days of neighbors helping neighbors and other Flagstaff residents volunteering to fill and stack sandbags, shovel mud, and anything else they can do help those in need, including some whose homes appear to be a complete loss.

Related article: Rain Outlook Bad For Schultz Flood Area

A Walk In The Woods

There's no news article link to give you for this one. I guess the ending didn't make it a newsworthy story. Still, a disabled teen did spend a cold night in the woods, and search and rescue, local firefighters, and members of CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) did spend all night looking for him, wandering the forest, Forest Service roads and trails, tracking, and knocking on doors in Munds Park.

He'd left the house around 5 p.m. on Friday but hadn't returned home by dark. The first searchers on scene checked what was said to be his usual route to Frog Tank, but there was no sign of the subject, legally an adult but mentally much younger, who wasn't dressed well for what was becoming a very cold night.  It had, after all, been a rather warm spring day.

We'd brought ATVs with us but were told the young man would probably be afraid of searchers, so the vehicle noise certainly wouldn't help. Not to mention the muddy and very wet conditions that would have made driving difficult. Even on foot, my search partner and I encountered some obstacles, at one point stopped by a wide and deep, swiftly moving creek swollen with spring runoff. We talked to two of our teammates who'd arrived on the opposite side of the creek, compared notes about our perspective assignments, and since our next search assignment was on their side and theirs on ours, we swapped.

As my companion and I looked for prints around a stock tank and seasonal ponds and along water-filled washes, we had to climb over barbed wire fences, slog through the mud, watch our step on jagged rocks and mounds of snow, and at one point, cross a very rickety suspension bridge. Meanwhile, we called the subject's name as nicely as we could, adding that he wasn't in trouble and we just wanted to help. We'd stop to listen for any response, but all we heard were coyotes.

And the only tracks we found belonged to critters, big and small. Other searchers even spotted some fresh mountain lion prints. In the pitch dark, I couldn't help but wonder if we were being watched.

Another search team did, however, find human prints in the woods. They matched prints they'd spotted around the subject's home. Incident Command had checked and described the tread on the boots of those who'd arrived first on scene to do a hasty search and ruled those out, so everyone was optimistic these were the missing teenager's prints. But the tracks were eventually lost in rocky terrain.

At daybreak, weary searchers were replaced by a fresh crew. But it wasn't long before the subject was located, Code 4 (fine), as he was walking back home.

A Snowy Search Near Munds Park

"Everybody be quiet for a second!" I had to raise my voice over the sound of the wind and radio traffic, neither of which stopped on my command. Nor did the racket caused by the icy pellets hitting my hood.

But my three tracking companions abruptly stopped talking, as I unzipped my jacket to turn down my radio. I thought I'd heard something just as we'd started moving again. If I had heard something, it was certainly far off and in the opposite direction than we'd been headed.

Another tracker said he thought he'd heard something, too.

"I'm going to shout," I told my teammates, then let out the loudest, high-pitched yell that I could. And then we all waited. Seconds later, I exclaimed, "Yes! I heard a bark!"  My teammates moved towards me and listened. Then we all heard it. Definitely a dog, and it was now actively barking.

During our mission briefing, we'd been told the woman we were looking for had called a friend the previous afternoon and said she was going to walk her dog and then come home. But she never returned, and her vehicle was located the following morning at the overlook on I-17 south of Munds Park. We'd also been told that the dog, a husky/shepherd mix named Max, is aggressive and protective so we should be very cautious if we encounter him. But, at this point, the barking was quite a distance off, across a canyon and possibly over the rise beyond.

Almost immediately, the four of us designated Tracking Team 3 took off in the direction of the sound, taking turns shouting and blowing whistles then quickly stopping to listen. "Tanya!" we called, hoping to hear a shout back from the 39-year-old mom we were looking for. "Max!" we yelled, hoping the dog would keep barking.

Once down in the canyon, we lost the sound but kept moving. Eventually, we split up, with two staying in the canyon as it rounded the base of the hill and two of us heading up-slope, trying to pick up the barking again.

We called and listened, called and listened, but it seemed the barking had stopped. As my teammate was talking with Incident Command on the radio, I moved further toward the far side of the hill and continued calling. And then I heard another bark. It still seemed rather distant. Was the dog moving?

The two of us continued in the direction of the sound, then stopped short. Suddenly, the barking was very close, and we caught sight of movement through the thick brush maybe 50 feet away. That was definitely Max! We watched the dog pace while we waited for our teammates to arrive before moving any closer. "Tanya!" we called a few more times, but there was no response.  Was she over there?

Finally, four of our teammates arrived, and we all moved in. Max moved off. No sign of Tanya in the immediate area. Two trackers followed Max, who was dragging his leash, and four of us began looking around.

Soon after, we found articles of clothing mostly buried in fresh snow right where Max had been pacing. A definite sign... but not a good one. We all knew this was likely evidence of paradoxical undressing, a phenomenon often associated with severe hypothermia. One of the items was partially burned, indicating that Tanya had made a futile attempt to start a fire. The other discarded articles of clothing were intact and not burned at all.

The four of us proceeded to search the immediate area, doing some "purposeful wandering" and then line-searching as best we could over the dense, rocky terrain, looking under pinion pine and juniper trees as we slowly worked our way back and forth. But we found no further evidence. Or Tanya.

After a long day of searching, often in blizzard conditions, we hiked out to base as our weary selves were replaced by fresh searchers with fresh eyes and bodies. For the rest of that evening, throughout the night and into the next day, the searching continued, with volunteers from our county and Yavapai County Search and Rescue working together.

At around noon on Wednesday, Tanya Morris's body was located by search dogs about 100 feet from where we'd found her clothing and boots. She'd been covered in snow and not immediately visible.

See: Missing Woman Found Dead South Of Munds Park

Added 3/16: Tanya Morris's obituary was in the paper today. She had four children and a life-partner of 14 years.

Daylight Makes All The Difference

In the dark, someone who's 150 feet away may as well be 150 miles away if you don't choose a path to their exact location or come close enough and happen to shine your light in the right direction. That is, if that someone can't respond.

It's hard not to beat yourself up over it—to keep rehashing it in your mind. Or, I should say, in my mind.  I thought about suggesting to my teammate (my husband in this case) that he and I circle through the woods around the ATV while we were waiting for our third field team member to join us. Why didn't I? Because I thought that had already been done? Maybe.

But even if we had circled around the ATV, there still was no guarantee we would have seen him. We wouldn't have gone very far in, only far enough to try cutting for sign. So we probably wouldn't have walked right to that spot. And even 10 feet away, in the lights of our headlamps, it was difficult to make out shapes on that dark, moonless night. Was that a stump or a log? A bush or a big rock? A man? So many dark shapes could have been a man. 

We did search for tracks while we waited, and there were many of them on the dirt road around the ATV. We looked at the deputies' boots and ruled out those two sets of prints. There was a third set of prints that were different. Maybe, we thought. But then we looked at a family member's shoes. The third set of tracks were his. We looked up and down the road, which had been driven heavily since the ATV was found. We saw no other footprints or partials there, so we looked at the ground on either side of the road near the quad. It's really difficult to find tracks on pine needles. Is that animal or human? Is that even a depression at all? There are so many deer and elk in those woods.

Then our third teammate arrived and we began our assignment.

 Many of us had been so close that night, and then we searched so miles. I didn't think our subject would walk all that far, though, given what we'd been told about him.

But you just can't know for sure. If he were conscious and anywhere near the quad (the last known point, or LKP), he'd have seen the campfire and the lights of our vehicles. Or he'd have heard us calling or even just talking. In fact, the air was so clear, cold, and still that night, field teams could hear each other's voices—a conversation, not a shout—a half-mile away. And we did shout and blow our whistles, too, as we searched. After the helicopter passed over, we shouted some more. And we looked. We shined our lights this way and that and walked closer to any "suspicious" shapes. There were many.

You want to believe the person you're searching for can hear you if you get close enough. You want to believe they can respond, but you look as hard as you can in case they can't. We covered a lot of ground that night—just not the right piece of ground.

At about 4 a.m., we returned to our SAR vehicles, near the LKP, to rest for a little while. At first light, we'd resume the search.

But we didn't have to. As soon as the sun came up, one of our team members, standing near where where the ATV's driver had left the machine, looked into the woods and saw "something that didn't look right." He walked into the trees, closer to that something, and saw it was indeed a man.

At least he'd died doing something he loved, people said. And he'd gotten his buck, which lay no more than 10 feet in front of where the man who was hunting it took his own last step.

One hundred fifty feet away might as well have been 150 miles that dark night, because he couldn't respond.

To this man's family and friends, my sincere condolences. I'm sorry this search didn't have a happy ending.

Found

Now that this is in the news, I can tell you that the remains of a man our team and others searched for for 10 days in January and again in March of this year have been located.

I'm referring to the case of Mark Russell Irby, who disappeared from his home in rural Forest Lakes, Arizona, during what was supposed to be a short ATV ride on "The Loop" around the subdivision—something he often did—before he and his wife would return to their home in the city later that morning.

Mr. Irby, last seen wearing a denim shirt, jeans, and plastic Croc shoes, was not dressed for an extended ride in those winter conditions, and there was no less than three feet of snow in the area at the time.

The initial search involved 1,800 hours of manpower on foot and 20 hours by air. No tracks or clues were found at that time.

I wrote about the ongoing, extensive search in January:

1/4: 48 Hours And Counting

1/11: Where Is Mark?

And again in March, when his ATV was located about 10 miles from his home:

3/17: Three Ongoing Searches

And this is one of the latest news reports:

From the Arizona Daily Sun: Body Of Missing ATV Rider From Valley Found

His remains were found along the shore of Chevelon Canyon Lake, about 12 miles northwest of his cabin in Forest Lakes.

I'm waiting to see if more information is released to the public about this case. If I see anything new, I'll post it here. In the meantime, I'm thinking back on the whole thing—what I know of it, anyway—and thinking, I just don't get it. How did he get so far from home in those conditions?

I feel really sad for Mr. Irby and for his family and friends. I met some of them during the search and really wanted this to somehow have a positive outcome. But I'm glad that at least no one has to wonder "Where is Mark?" any longer.

A Short Walk Turns Into A Long Night

Incident Commander (IC): So, when you parked the ATV and got off, what were you planning to do?

Subject: I was just going to check out a couple of tanks (man-made watering holes) in the area, for elk sign. I figured that one tank was only, like, 1000 yards away or something, so I just walked that direction. But I never saw it.

IC: And what did you do then?

Subject: I kept going, but I guess I got turned around. I thought I was walking back to the power line where I'd left my ATV, but I never found it again. I walked for hours. Then it got dark and cold, so I laid down and covered myself with pine needles.

IC: Did you ever see the helicopter?

Subject: Yeah, they flew right over, but I had no way to signal them.

IC: And what about the searchers on the ground? Did you hear them calling or any whistles during the night?

Subject: No, not till right before they found me. Then I started yelling back. I did hear a siren once, earlier, but it was a long way off.

IC: So, what would you tell someone else who was in this sort of situation?

Subject: [emphatically] I'd tell 'em never, ever walk away without your pack. Take a light, food, and water, a map and compass, and all that. Even if you're just going for a short walk, be prepared! I've been doin' this outdoor stuff and hunting for a long time, so this can happen to anybody.

I leaned over the seat, watching through the open rear hatch of the incident commander's vehicle as this conversation was going on. I'd been waiting back at IC for teammates to return with the subject, who'd been located about an hour earlier around 2:30 a.m. The commander asked those of us in the vehicle, "You guys have anything to add?"

I looked at the subject, illuminated by the interior lights of the cab, as he stood out back with our commander. The man had been driven to base by one of our teammates in a SAR vehicle, while the others hiked back to retrieve their ATVs and the subject's quad. "No," I answered. "We're just really glad you're okay."

With his arms wrapped around himself, the man nodded and, in a shaky voice, said, "Thank you all. Thank you very much."

Poor guy. It'd been a long, uncomfortable, and probably scary night for him. He'd heard about rabid animals in the area, he'd said, and he worried about the coyotes. Just because you've been camping, hiking, and hunting for a long time doesn't mean you're immune to mistakes or being afraid. I could tell he was embarrassed.

It had been a long night for us searchers, too. We'd been called out shortly before sundown and, after loading trailers and equipment, we responded to the staging area near Kinnikinick Lake. While we were en route and as the light was fading, the man's ATV was spotted along a power line by air rescue.

When a deputy on the ground reached the quad, he found that it was dry beneath the vehicle and wet all around. That means it had rained since the ATV was parked, and he was unable to find any foot tracks near the quad to determine the subject's direction of travel from that point. Trackers from our team tried cutting for sign in the immediate area but didn't find any prints.

By then dark, we continued to search in pairs for six, seven hours before some foot tracks were finally picked up along a forest service road. Twenty minutes later, I heard a teammate report through the static that he thought they "had our subject." Radio communications and cell phone contact were sketchy at best, so the rest of us had to wait for several long minutes to find out that they meant a living subject. Due to some medical history, we'd been worried that a health issue may have been the reason the man hadn't returned to his ATV or to the camp he was sharing with his brother, the reporting party, since 10 a.m. the previous day.

At 7:30 the following morning—yesterday, Tuesday, May 1—I got home just after my husband had gone to work. After two nights of SAR in a row, I was rather wiped out, but I'd have to wait till that evening to get some sleep. I had things to do for my mom and some practice back at the SAR building already arranged for yesterday afternoon with two other teammates for a little Rock Rescue Academy homework.

Needless to say, when I did finally commune with my pillow at 9:30 last night, I slept really well until the sun through the window woke me up this morning.

Lost And Found

My cell phone rang at 1 p.m. on Thursday, just as I was finishing lunch. "You available?" Al asked.

My adrenaline kicked in immediately. "You bet!" I told him and began gathering my gear while still on the phone. I admit, it feels good to be called before the pager has even gone off. Al said he needed someone to do nav/comm (to navigate and work the radio) while he would work with Cassie, his and the team's tracking dog.

This would be a search for an elderly woman (details omitted), who'd left the family's campsite that morning with her two dogs, but one dog had returned alone. Al needed to get to the staging area, where a scent article would be available, with Cassie as soon as possible and begin the hasty search. I quickly changed into field clothes and was out the door in five minutes.

After rendezvousing at the SAR building, then a stop at the Sheriff's office for a briefing, we were off toward Ashfork, down old (decaying) Route 66 and onto a rough dirt road to Stone Dam. A short while later, Cassie was in her harness and on her lead, and after a good sniff of the scent article, she and Al began working while I followed a short distance behind. I didn't want to distract Cassie or get in her way.

It was a good bit hotter at that lower elevation in the pinion-juniper than in Flagstaff. My mouth was dry within minutes, and my Gatorade was hot in no time, but I was in the zone, focused on our task, and didn't really notice the heat or the cactus barbs sticking through my trail runners.

While Al and I followed Cassie, weaving through thick brush along the south side of the lake, other field teams were heading out from base, some on foot and others on ATVs, calling the woman's name and searching for clues or prints, either those that might belong to the subject or the tiny dog she was with. We had no idea, of course, if the two were still together.

Cassie, a three year-old German shepherd, appeared very intent on her work, trying to find the scent, but she displayed "no positive alerts" during the hours that passed. At one point, we searched a narrow drainage, until a dropoff and thick brush prevented us from going further.

Al explained that it's easier for Cassie to follow scent in cooler temperatures—that it degrades faster in the heat. He was also unsure of the integrity, so to speak, of the scent article, which had been gathered by someone else before our arrival and mixed with a pair of boots.

After several hours of searching, we returned to base. Our intention was to leave Cassie there to rest after all that time in the heat and continue searching without her. But not long after we'd set down our packs for a short break ourselves, we heard over the radio that the subject had been found. What a relief! At her age and given the time since she'd last been seen, the heat, and lack of water, I was very concerned about the outcome. She was okay, though, and so was her dog. (I was worried about the chihuahua too!)

From what I understand, some of those programmable signs along the highway—you know, the kind that display road construction information or Amber alerts—had displayed a message about the missing woman, during which time a motorist saw that message, then spotted an elderly woman with a tiny dog along the road and reported it, and that led to our subject's rescue. Nice!

As the woman was reunited with family and our team reconvened and waited to debrief, I realized this had been one of the more costly missions I'd been on, personally speaking. You know that brand new camera I was so excited about? Gone. Yep, it's out there somewhere amongst the pinion-juniper. So if you happen to be out that way, doing some bushwhacking, and find a camera with some cool helicopter shots on it, let me know. If you wanna keep it, though, that's okay; my understanding and generous husband went out and bought me a new one with his own art supply fund after I'd called him, pouting, from the field. But no photos this time, I'm afraid.

At about 8 p.m., we arrived back at the SAR building and proceeded to unload all the unit gear and ATVs... JUST in time to head out for another mission.

An Ongoing Mystery

If I'd taken one, I'd show you a picture of all the vegetation that came out of my hair following our latest search—not only the pinon/juniper/ponderosa pine salad that collected around the shower drain the night I returned but also the pile of twig bits I assembled on my desk the next day. Long hair and SAR just don't mix very well.

Anyway, it was another bushwhack, this time in the area where the ATV belonging to Mark Russell Irby was found about a week and a half ago. As you might recall, Mr. Irby went missing on January 2nd from Forest Lakes, when he went out for "just a short ride" around the subdivision before he and his wife were to return to their home in the city. But Mark Irby never did return, and after a 10-day search, neither he nor the red Bombardier ATV he'd been driving had been located. Not until a couple of hunters stumbled upon the ATV earlier this month, well outside of the original search area.

This time, I participated in the "Irby search, Part 2," on two days, the first being a hasty search when the ATV was retrieved and then a full day, which included efforts by two counties, mounted units, K-9 teams, ATV riders, and ground teams. My field team was assigned to search a canyon. I took center position along the bottom, while Mike and Larry and Larry's chocolate lab Logger (or maybe it's Lager?) covered the flanks.

At first, the going was rather easy. We spread out a bit, keeping one another in sight, and slowly made our way along what began as a gently sloping drainage, scanning the ground and trees for anything out of the ordinary. We kept an eye out for clothing or perhaps even bones that weren't clearly those of an animal. We checked clusters of rocks and beneath bushes, being as thorough as we could.

Then the canyon began to deepen, and eventually my teammates were high above me and often out of sight, with steep, brush-covered walls on either side of me. At times, we were out of voice contact too, as the vertical distance between them and me grew into the hundreds of feet, so we resorted to communicating by radio as I periodically plotted our progress on my map and relayed to IC that we were Code 4 (okay) and our approximate location in our search segment. Eventually, though, I was too deep in the canyon to make radio contact with base, so my teammate on the rim above me relayed the messages.

At one point, I thought I might have to backtrack in order to ever exit that canyon. I'd come to a bit of a climb and, though Mike had found a place to make his way down to the bottom to join me and successfully negotiated the tricky spot, my arms and legs just weren't as long as his and I was having trouble finding good hand- and footholds that I could reach. So I walked back and forth, looking for an adequate spot to climb and finally gave in to handing my pack up to my teammate to make things a little easier.

"You think you might be able to brace yourself to give me a wrist?" I asked Mike as he stood looking down at me. I don't like to ask for help, but I figured it might speed things up—a lot.

Mike wedged his foot against a dead but sturdy tree and reached for my arm. It wasn't pretty, let me tell you, and I ended up in the dirt, but needless to say I made it with my teammate's assistance and we continued on.

As the canyon bottom gradually rose to rejoin the rims, so too did my radio make contact again with the others in the field. Teams were spread out all over the new search area, doing a good job of covering the 10 segments from morning till late afternoon. But, as far as I know, nothing of particular interest was found, and the mystery surrounding Mr. Irby's disappearance continues.

Three Ongoing Searches

This is one of them, as reported on the Arizona Daily Sun website this afternoon:

7-year-old boy missing near Red Mountain

"A 7-year-old boy who was on an outing near Red Mountain with a group from The Guidance Center in Flagstaff has been reported missing.

"According to information from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, Michael Sandoval has been missing since about 3 p.m. Monday in the Red Mountain area off Highway 180 about 30 miles north of the city. He was part of a group of three adults and 10 clients from TGC. He was last seen wearing a black ball cap with an image of a white bear in the front, a medium to dark blue shirt with the word 'baseball' on the front in white letters. He also was wearing blue jeans and skateboard shoes.

"Search and Rescue crews on the ground and an Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter crew have been searching the area.

"Anybody traveling on Highway 180 in the area of Red Mountain are asked to watch for the missing child and to contact sheriff’s officials if the boy is sighted by calling 774-4523 or 1-800-338-7888."

I just got home after being relieved by a fresh team after 17 hours in the field, from 5:45 p.m. yesterday till 11 a.m. today. I'm punchy from lack of sleep, not to mention very concerned for the little boy. My partner and I called his name throughout the night, searching along a network of dirt roads while other teammates searched on foot and ATVs. Our canine unit was on scene, too.

We'd discovered some tracks thought to belong to the boy and were following them when our crew of bleary-eyed searchers were relieved by fresh eyes this morning.

Also in today's edition of the Arizona Daily Sun was this news about the continued search for Mark Irby, which began on January 2nd of this year:

ATV belonging to missing man found

"The recent discovery of the ATV belonging to a Valley man who went missing from his Forest Lakes vacation home earlier this year has reignited the search for the man.

"According to information from the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, on Saturday, two men on a hunting and fishing trip found the red Bombardier ATV belonging to Mark R. Irby abandoned off Forest Service Road 170, about a mile southeast of Chevelon Canyon Lake and about 12 miles by road from Irby's cabin. Irby, 51, was last seen riding the ATV on Jan. 2. According to family members, Irby was going to take a short ride around the subdivision before returning to his primary home in Chandler. He was not dressed to hike or spend an extended amount of time in the woods, which had a deep snow pack at the time.

"On Sunday, police and search and rescue volunteers began combing the area where the ATV was found and intensive search efforts will continue throughout the week. Searchers had not previously covered the Chevelon Canyon Lake area.

More than 1,800 hours have been invested in the search for Irby."

I participated in this ongoing search on Sunday and would have been back at it today had the call not come in for the missing child yesterday afternoon, which kept me out all night.

Meanwhile, we've yet to find the man from the van abandoned along Interstate 17 near the scenic vista south of Munds Park.

Nine contiguous days of search and rescue activity for our team... and counting. And not so long ago, I'd remarked about how quiet it had been for more than a month.

Now off to the shower and to squeeze in some errands before an early bedtime. I have a feeling our pagers will be going off today for more searching tomorrow.

Update at 12:50 p.m.:
I just found out via Twitter that the boy has been found! Sounds like he's okay. At 12:47 @FlagstaffNews posted: "Searchers found 7-year-old boy who spent night in forest after getting separated from group yesterday. He's being checked out now."

And a few minutes later, this breaking news story showed up on the Arizona Daily Sun website: Searchers Find Missing 7-Year Old Boy. Phew!

Five Out Of The Last Seven Days

That's how much I've been on SAR missions lately. And I could be back out there today too, but I've decided to take a "day off" and catch up on some other business. If there's searching to do tomorrow, though, I'll be going.

You know, sometimes I look around at my teammates, working hard at their assignments and giving their all in the field, and think to myself, wow, they don't have to be out here. Search and rescue isn't a job for us; we're volunteers. But you wouldn't know it if you saw the effort these folks put in. I'm truly inspired by their dedication, and I feel that way, too. When our pagers go off or the phone rings and we're asked to respond, it doesn't matter that we're not paid for this. SAR is rewarding and satisfying.

But it can be very frustrating too. We want to find who, and sometimes what, we're looking for. Day after day of searching but finding nothing—not even a clue—turns me into a redundant rambler. My poor husband, he has to listen to me say things like, "It just doesn't make sense; that person has to be out there," or "Where could they be?" as I make him look at maps with me. I'm fortunate, though, that Steve is truly interested and understands when I get hung up on an unresolved mission.

And we've had a couple of those lately, including the man from the van. I was out there helping search for him for four days, doing my best to look under every bush and tree while trying not to twist my ankle or trip on the rocks and keeping an eye on my teammate to my right or left as we did grid searches. It's one thing to do that in an open field, but staying in line and on track over rugged terrain and through dense brush is certainly a challenge. I appreciated the great work my team leaders did during those assignments, not only searching and navigating but keeping an eye on the rest of us and keeping us in proper formation at the same time. I most definitely learned some things and think I improved my grid search skills this past week.

Well, it's time to trade my pajamas for spandex and a cotton tee and head to Jazzercise. I'm still trying to lose some pounds off of me and up my fitness level in preparation for that "3 miles in 45 minutes with a 45-pound pack" test for the technical rescue team. Then, after an hour of aerobic dancin', it's back to this chair for several hours of work. Part of my mind, though, will be on my teammates in the field today. I do hope there will be some news.

The Mystery Of The Man With The Van

I wish I could share anything and everything about our SAR missions, but legally and ethically I shouldn't. So I always re-read what I write here and reluctantly delete some details. Suffice it to say, this one was (or, rather, is) another puzzler.

A van sat abandoned along the freeway near a scenic overlook. Items found in the unlocked vehicle prompted many questions, and those of us searching on the first day of the mission contemplated possible scenarios. Why did the subject park here? What was going on with him at the time? Where the heck did he go? We came up with quite a few answers, some rather creative.

Meanwhile, my three teammates and I spread out for a grid search, keeping each other in sight through the pinion-juniper and thick underbrush as we stumbled over loose rocks and squished through the mud. We searched along the nearby cliff band too, carefully peering over the edge. We thought we were going to find the man from the van not all that far from the road.

But we didn't find a thing, so our coordinator did a call-out for the next day. I wasn't able to go back out to search—Mom's needs took precedence—but a teammate told me nothing turned up on Tuesday, either. My friend said she'd walked about five miles, zigzagging across her team's assigned segment. She said she was exhausted.

At least I know it wasn't just me. I mean, it wasn't mountaineering, but somehow I was more spent after that search than I usually am when we're on the peaks. Something about that rocky and muddy ground and climbing over barbed wire fence all afternoon really ate through my energy reserves. Not to mention that I hadn't eaten much before, and nothing during, the search. Silly me.

So, we'll see what happens with this mystery. Today, though, we're heading out for an evidence search connected with a bank robbery. Apparently, the suspects were caught along with the cash, but there's still something out there that law enforcement would like to have. So, if you happen to see a bunch of people in yellow shirts walking in a grid down the middle of a highway, that may just be us.

Where is Mark?

That's the question many people have been asking for the past 10 days. It's the question that's kept me up at night even when I'm exhausted from another day of searching. And I know everyone involved in the effort feels the same. We just want to find Mark, to give this story an ending.

I've started this entry over several times. 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 initial facts seem to point to a fairly rapid resolution that didn't happen, but ground-pounders (rather, snow-pounders in this case) didn't find a single clue. 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, who were 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 or friend of the missing. That was clear in their faces, even if they gave us a smile.

Over the past 10 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. 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 and 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.

A Life Saved After All

I don't think any of us knew just how serious his condition really was. I'm referring to the man we recently evacuated from the Humphreys Trail after he'd experienced shortness of breath and chest tightness during his descent. While members of our SAR team along with Guardian crew were bringing him down in the litter, medics monitored the patient's condition. It seemed the longer he was on oxygen and the lower we went, the more his condition improved. He was talkative and not in any further distress, he said.

According to Sergeant D, though, who updated us at our general SAR meeting this past Thursday, the patient had a blood clot in his stint. Had he attempted to walk, he may have had a serious, potentially fatal heart attack.

When our coordinator gave us this news, Liz and I looked at each other with wide eyes. Sometimes you don't know what a difference a rescue is making in someone's life during the mission. Boy, I'm glad the Good Samaritan called for help when he came across Andrew sitting by the side of the trail.

On another note, we were paged at 1:15 Friday morning for a missing hunter with a history of diabetic coma. The man's companion had last seen him at 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, before he'd left in his truck from their camp in a remote area near the South Rim of Grand Canyon. The man had mentioned that if he did leave, he'd be going to a particular tank (a watering hole for livestock). But his friend had checked that tank and then drove around for another five hours without any luck. Then he called for SAR.

Coconino County is so big that it can take us a long time to get to an area before we can even begin to search. In this case, the point last seen was 30-some-odd miles down a dirt road and a nearly three-hour drive from Flagstaff. Two deputies were already in the area  while we were on our way, gathering additional information and driving the network of dirt roads and two-tracks. At first light, we'd have the assistance of the DPS helicopter, too.

But as we were nearing the hunters' camp, we heard one of the deputies on scene call Sergeant D. "I hate to do this to you," he said. Al turned up the radio, and we leaned in to listen. Sure enough, they'd just made cellphone contact with the subject, who was about a mile and a half from camp, Code 4. He was fine, he said. No diabetic issues.

Al and I couldn't help but laugh—this kind of timing has happened a number of times before. But good, that's the end result we always hope for. After a little shut-eye for an hour, we turned around and drove back to Flagstaff.

Update: Cinder Hill Cindy Has a Real Name

Her name was Julie Renee Windhorn. She was 33 years young when she died on a nondescript cinder hill on the Navajo Army Depot grounds west of Flagstaff. The cause of death has been listed as "undetermined," but nothing is being ruled out.

Read the Arizona Daily Sun story and see a photo of Julie here: Human remains found near Bellemont identified

They Call Her Cinder Hill Cindy

Pushing through the brush, thorns tear at my clothing and skin, leaving snags, nicks, and blood streaks behind. Young locust trees, from knee to chest high, are everywhere. I'm down on hands and knees from time to time to peer under what I can't get through, then carefully pick my way around the worst of it, trying to stay at least somewhat even with the searchers to my right and left. It's difficult to maintain our line in this thick underbrush.

Our assignment today is to look for more pieces of "Cinder Hill Cindy," the name given to skeletal remains found a few days ago by some men working near this cinder hill, here on army depot grounds. As they were driving by, the men spotted what they thought was an elk antler, shining white in the sun halfway up the steep slope. Upon closer inspection, they realized that what they'd found were human ribs. Then a skull, mandible, and other bones were located nearby. Authorities were contacted, more searching and forensic tests were conducted, and it was determined that the bones, including a pelvis, belonged to a female between the ages of 25 and 35, with a mean age of 30.7 years. The pelvic bone also provided the approximate height of the young lady. We're told they found some teeth and hair, also, which are currently being analyzed.

Nine SAR volunteers are searching today, along with two detectives, a forensic anthropologist, and a medical examiner. We've ascended the cinder hill, spread out at roughly five-foot intervals, and are making our way across the top, which is covered with thick, thorny vegetation.

The idea is to space ourselves just close enough that we can spot something the size of a six-inch bone midway between one another. We're also on the lookout for anything else that "doesn't belong" here. Whatever we happen to see, we're not to touch. Instead, we call for the line to stop, mark the GPS location of the object, flag it with yellow tape, and wait for one of the detectives to come over and take a look. They'll decide if the object—be it bone, fabric, jewelry, or whatnot—has any merit in this case. Once we get to the end of our search zone, we'll pivot around and head back the other way, so as not to overlook anything between the out and the back. We're still missing significant pieces of Cinder Hill Cindy.

It's hot and buggy here, which adds to the discomfort. I've got prickly little bebbles stuck all over my socks, and I've given up some hair to the locust thorns. But I'm determined to check as many nooks and crannies as possible and try not to miss anything that may be on either side of me. There are some really overgrown areas, though, that are just impossible to check so thoroughly, and my imagination tells me those impenetrable areas must be where the bones and other clues are hidden, probably dragged under there by animals.

After an hour or more, finding only what turned out to be deer bones and one small piece of purple latex of some sort (part of a balloon? or could it be from a glove?), we arrive at the end of our search area and take a break before pivoting around to head in the opposite direction. We're not discouraged per se, but I don't think any of us are all that optimistic about finding anything significant. More experienced SAR members tell me they've been on lots of these evidence searches and often found nothing at all. One of the detectives had joked, just before we started out today, that we should locate the young lady's wallet, please. Yeah, wouldn't that be helpful.

Well, guess what.

Liz makes the find of the day, and what a find it is. Clothing. A full set, laid out just so. Jacket, pants, trail runner type of shoes, underwear. And a credit card and drivers license in plain view! The detectives are astonished. They set down numbered markers and dial their cell phones at the same time.

Now Cinder Hill Cindy has a real name, and this find has solved a missing person case. Two years ago, this young lady, aged 32, was reported missing from back east. A year and a half ago, during the winter, a backpack belonging to this same person was found on I-17, which is between 15 to 20 miles from this location. And now, we've discovered her fate.

But now that one big question has been answered, many more have been created. How did she get here? This is a secure area, which we had to have an escort to enter. Could she have climbed a fence along a more remote section? Did someone bring her here, or did she get in on her own? What happened to her? How did she die?

We're told the skull and other bones found thus far show no signs of trauma. Neither did the clothing, laid out so neatly and still that way after two years. And the credit card and ID right there, face-up on the ground? I'm told that not only do hypothermic people often end up disrobing but place their clothing neatly as well. Could that explain this situation?

We discuss the possibilities for the next couple of hours, until we finally sign out and part ways back at the SAR building. And I'm sure we'll be talking about this one for a long time to come. I hope, as we were promised, detectives will let us know when... that is, if any conclusion is ever made.