Recent SAR Activity

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

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

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.