Sometimes search and rescue is a little like that game I played at camp when I was a kid. Someone would start out with a couple of sentences and whisper them into the ear of the next kid in line. That kid would then whisper to the next and so on, until the message reached the last person and they announced the message. Then it was compared to the original message, and nearly every time, it was at least a little, if not very, different.
I don't know the chain of communication in this latest SAR case, but by the time I saw the Facebook post by a local newsperson who listens to and reports on scanner traffic, it was "MAJOR MEDICAL: 3 APS employees have fallen from a ledge while working on a power box on Mt. Elden." I began changing into my mission clothes immediately.
Soon afterward, SAR was actually called, and I headed right out. This was going to be a long, difficult mission, I thought, evacuating three injured patients off that rugged mountain. Apparently, they were not on or near a trail.
Soon, nine of our volunteers rendezvoused with Flagstaff Fire Department personnel at the base of Mt. Elden along the gas pipeline trail. Two of our members, who had responded directly to the mountain while the rest of us loaded Stokes litters and other technical rescue equipment, climbed up to the power company workers, who were visible from below. There were actually seven of them up there.
When the rest of the responding SAR members arrived on scene, we and Flag Fire were informed that everyone on the mountain was mobile and could be walked down. What had happened to the injuries I'd read about online—a leg injury, a foot injury, and one complaining of "severe chest and stomach pains?"
Apparently, there was one guy with a reoccurring bad knee that was bothering him today but no leg injury. There was no evidence of a foot injury that I was aware of, and I was told the chest and stomach pains had been cramps from dehydration, relieved by the water and Gatorade brought up to them by the first responders on scene.
Those of us preparing to climb up were asked to bring mountain rope and other gear to rig some safety handlines as a precaution during the bouldering left to be done to reach the bottom. Some of the APS workers were tired and, though they'd been rehydrated, might be at greater risk of tripping and falling on shaky legs. We also brought extra helmets and headlamps in case it got dark before everyone was down.
In the end, the mission went smoothly, and all were in good spirits and good shape. No one requested or wanted medical attention.
From what I heard, the APS workers had, earlier that morning, left a couple of their vehicles at the base of the mountain, then carpooled to the summit. They were, as one man put it, on a "reconnaissance mission" to scope out an electrical line that was going to be built (or rebuilt maybe). "It wasn't one of the smartest things we've ever done," he said.
I'm not sure what exactly happened up there, but they didn't seem prepared—physically or otherwise—for a day on the mountain. I believe several of the workers had made it down or most of the way down to their vehicles at the bottom but had then gone back up to assist the other three. If there had been any kind of fall, I didn't hear anyone mention it. Who knows? Just glad it all worked out well and with daylight to spare.
These are my stories as a volunteer member of the Sheriff's Search and Rescue team in Coconino County, Arizona. I'll share what it's like to go from a beginner with a lot to learn to an experienced and, hopefully, valuable member of the team, as well as the missions, training, and other activities along the way.
Searching for Those Who Don't Want to Be Found
I could feel the sweat dripping down my neck and back and occasionally off the tip of my nose. It was late at night, but Oak Creek Canyon was holding in the heat and monsoon season humidity. I turned off my headlamp as my partner and I stopped for a brief rest, and in the absence of a moon, couldn't see the drop-off to my right.
We each called one of the missing boys' names. As we'd expected, there was no response from the darkness.
These were not "just" missing teenagers, though—they were runaways. Earlier that day, they'd taken off from some sort of camp for troubled or in-trouble youth, scrambling up a very steep slope, toward what we didn't know. Did they?
Randy and I picked up some human tracks, off-trail, soon after we'd arrived at our assigned search area along Route 89A in Oak Creek Canyon. But we lost those tracks amongst the thick pine needles and game trails partway up the calf-burning slope. We later wondered if the boys had stopped and hidden until the coast was clear, then gone back down to the road.
Picking and slipping our way back down ourselves, I stopped frequently to pull bits of forest debris out of the palms of my hands. Mental note: Wear my work gloves when doing stuff like this.
When we got to our vehicle, we drove down the road (up and down, actually, until we found the nondescript trailhead we were looking for) and headed up the Thomas Trail to the rim, calling and searching up-slope and down with our headlamps. We needed to be sure that the boys, though they had intentionally run away, hadn't gotten themselves into a bad situation —cliffed out, for example, or injured—in the process.
Meanwhile, other ground teams were searching by ATV and UTV up on the rim. Another pair of searchers was hiking the Telephone Trail, parallel to ours, maybe a mile away. All reported negative contact.
Before Randy and I had hiked back to the bottom of the canyon, we contacted Incident Command (IC) and found out that our coordinator had gone further down 89A to assist with a multiple fatality, head-on collision near Grasshopper Point and Midgley Bridge. Earlier, he had asked us to look closely for sign (footprints or other clues) at the top of the trail, but we saw nothing of interest around Thomas Point.
About an hour later, we slipped our sweaty packs off our sweaty backs. Randy then called IC on the radio for our next assignment.
"You can return to Flagstaff," our coordinator told us. "The subjects have been located."
Back at the SAR building close to midnight, we learned that a family member had contacted law enforcement and said the boys were safe... somewhere.
We each called one of the missing boys' names. As we'd expected, there was no response from the darkness.
These were not "just" missing teenagers, though—they were runaways. Earlier that day, they'd taken off from some sort of camp for troubled or in-trouble youth, scrambling up a very steep slope, toward what we didn't know. Did they?
Randy and I picked up some human tracks, off-trail, soon after we'd arrived at our assigned search area along Route 89A in Oak Creek Canyon. But we lost those tracks amongst the thick pine needles and game trails partway up the calf-burning slope. We later wondered if the boys had stopped and hidden until the coast was clear, then gone back down to the road.
Picking and slipping our way back down ourselves, I stopped frequently to pull bits of forest debris out of the palms of my hands. Mental note: Wear my work gloves when doing stuff like this.
When we got to our vehicle, we drove down the road (up and down, actually, until we found the nondescript trailhead we were looking for) and headed up the Thomas Trail to the rim, calling and searching up-slope and down with our headlamps. We needed to be sure that the boys, though they had intentionally run away, hadn't gotten themselves into a bad situation —cliffed out, for example, or injured—in the process.
Meanwhile, other ground teams were searching by ATV and UTV up on the rim. Another pair of searchers was hiking the Telephone Trail, parallel to ours, maybe a mile away. All reported negative contact.
Before Randy and I had hiked back to the bottom of the canyon, we contacted Incident Command (IC) and found out that our coordinator had gone further down 89A to assist with a multiple fatality, head-on collision near Grasshopper Point and Midgley Bridge. Earlier, he had asked us to look closely for sign (footprints or other clues) at the top of the trail, but we saw nothing of interest around Thomas Point.
About an hour later, we slipped our sweaty packs off our sweaty backs. Randy then called IC on the radio for our next assignment.
"You can return to Flagstaff," our coordinator told us. "The subjects have been located."
Back at the SAR building close to midnight, we learned that a family member had contacted law enforcement and said the boys were safe... somewhere.
*******
Earlier last week, our SAR team responded to a call to search for a missing suicidal female. We were given the description of her vehicle, and our search area was based on information from a cellphone ping from her most recent call. We were instructed to contact Incident Command if we located the woman and/or her vehicle but not to approach. She was eventually located in that vehicle, alive but in need of medical assistance.
*******
Search and Rescue Community Outreach
This past week, members of the Coconino County Sheriff's Search and Rescue team visited the kids at Pinewood Camp in Munds Park for the second time, teaching them about SAR, the ten essentials (gear), map and compass and a little alternative navigation, how to NOT get lost and what to do if they do get lost, and a bit of backcountry patient care and litter evacuation. A good time was had by team members and campers alike.
Fourteen kids participated in the program, ranging in age from seven to 14. During the initial overview of what search and rescue is all about, there were lots of questions—bear encounters was a theme that kept coming up—and requests for SAR stories from the area.
After a few stories, we divided the kids into two groups and had some fun with navigation, equipment, and hands-on simulated patient evacuation with the backboard and Stokes litter.
Here, Pete does show-and-tell with the ten essentials from his backpack...
Meanwhile, Al and Dave teach some navigation to the other half of the group....
Next, we did a bit of pretend SAR. In this photo, the injured subject has been located and packaged in the litter...
The kids help Bob, Pete, and me evacuate our patient (who was a very enthusiastic actress)...
After the groups swapped places and had a chance to do everything we'd planned, we did a little impromptu technical rescue demonstration with an imaginary cliff...
After we wrapped up and the campers left for lunch, the camp host said it had gone really well and the kids must have had a great time because they didn't even once ask about their usual snack break. We were then invited back for next summer.
One of the ongoing requirements for being a member team of the Mountain Rescue Association is doing community outreach and P-SAR, so we'll be doing more presentations and interactive programs in the future, for both children and adults.
Fourteen kids participated in the program, ranging in age from seven to 14. During the initial overview of what search and rescue is all about, there were lots of questions—bear encounters was a theme that kept coming up—and requests for SAR stories from the area.
After a few stories, we divided the kids into two groups and had some fun with navigation, equipment, and hands-on simulated patient evacuation with the backboard and Stokes litter.
Here, Pete does show-and-tell with the ten essentials from his backpack...
Meanwhile, Al and Dave teach some navigation to the other half of the group....
Next, we did a bit of pretend SAR. In this photo, the injured subject has been located and packaged in the litter...
The kids help Bob, Pete, and me evacuate our patient (who was a very enthusiastic actress)...
After the groups swapped places and had a chance to do everything we'd planned, we did a little impromptu technical rescue demonstration with an imaginary cliff...
After we wrapped up and the campers left for lunch, the camp host said it had gone really well and the kids must have had a great time because they didn't even once ask about their usual snack break. We were then invited back for next summer.
One of the ongoing requirements for being a member team of the Mountain Rescue Association is doing community outreach and P-SAR, so we'll be doing more presentations and interactive programs in the future, for both children and adults.
CoCo SAR News
From a recent media release from the office of Sheriff Bill Pribil:
During the June meeting of the International Mountain Rescue Association (MRA), held in Eagle Colorado, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Technical Rescue Team received full accreditation as a certified member of MRA. The MRA was established in 1959 at Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, Oregon, making it the oldest Search and Rescue association in the United States.
The MRA is an organization of teams dedicated to saving lives through rescue and mountain safety education. The goal of MRA is to improve the quality, availability, and safety of mountain search and rescue. With over ninety government authorized units, the MRA has grown to become the critical mountain search and rescue resource in the United States.
The highly respected Mountain Rescue Association accredits teams involved in mountain rescue and has very high standards for performance in the areas of wilderness search, technical rock rescue, and snow and ice rescue. A team applying for full accreditation must pass an evaluation in each of those disciplines. Arizona lies within the Mountain Rescue Association’s Desert Mountain Region along with the state of Nevada. Within the Desert Mountain Region there are only three other fully accredited teams including the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, Central Arizona Mountain Rescue Association, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Search and Rescue Unit.
On March 6th and 7th the Coconino County Sheriff’s Technical Rescue Team completed the Snow and Ice accreditation exam. The team was evaluated on winter rescue techniques. The evaluation included a field exercise in which an avalanche with three victims was simulated. The team was observed in the field by evaluators from the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, Central Arizona Mountain Rescue Association, and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The team's knowledge of over the snow travel, snow anchors, avalanche safety, winter survival techniques, winter rescue pre-plans, wilderness medical considerations and patient transport, and winter rescue equipment use was tested in the scenario.
With this last of three evaluations completed the Coconino County Sheriff’s Technical Rescue Team achieved accreditation in the three disciplines required for full accreditation. The Wilderness Search accreditation was passed in August 2010 and the Technical Rock Rescue accreditation was passed in October 2010. Coconino County Sheriff Bill Pribil said, “The Sheriff’s Office and the residents of Coconino County are truly blessed to have more than one hundred dedicated volunteers who spend countless hours training on an annual basis and who are willing to place themselves in harms way by venturing into hazardous terrain or inclement weather conditions to help there fellow man or woman.”
In other CoCo SAR news...
Yesterday, as I was listening to the scanner, I heard about an injured hiker on Mt. Elden. At first, SAR was put on standby by Flagstaff Fire Department, who were the first on scene and taking over incident command.
Once Flag Fire personnel and Guardian medics reached the patient, who'd suffered a head wound with loss of consciousness on the Elden Lookout Trail, and packaged her in a litter, they did request SAR assistance. Team members responded directly to the trailhead and hiked up to rendezvous with the evacuation team already on their way down, providing extra hands to relieve those who needed a break on the rugged carry-out. (I was unable to respond due to other commitments.)
Also, on July 27th, SAR volunteers, myself included, will be giving a P-SAR (preventative search and rescue) presentation at Pinewood Camp. We'll be working with kids ranging in age from 4 to 14 and will give them an introduction to SAR (what it's all about), teach them how to NOT get lost, what to do if they do get lost, basic map and compass use, and some hands-on show-and-tell about equipment (the ten essentials). We'll make the three-hour program as interactive as possible and are currently working on a plan for the afternoon.
Coconino County SAR members also gave a presentation on July 20th at a local church.
I'm told that interviews for prospective team members will begin shortly. Following interviews, new volunteers will take part in the Basic Search and Rescue Academy beginning this September, learning skills such as map and compass, GPS navigation, man-tracking, ATV operation, backcountry preparedness and safety, ICS (the Incident Command System) and more. Upon completion of the academy, new members will be put on the call-out roster and be able to respond to missions and ongoing training. If you're interested in becoming a search and rescue volunteer with Coconino County, you can fill out an application with the sheriff's department.
Way Over The Edge -- A Technical Recovery Mission
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| Horseshoe Bend (Colorado River) -- the site of our mission |
Do you know how heavy 900 feet of half-inch rope is?
Neither do I, exactly. At least, not in actual pounds. But I've felt how heavy it is as I've tried to belay someone on the end of it. Actually, at the point where a stronger teammate took over, when my arms were starting to shake and the sweat was dripping off my chin—it was about 100 degrees out there under the desert sun—there was far less than 900 feet of rope already over the edge.
When my hands were free of the tandem prusik belay, I moved over to the main line and attached another rope to the 600-footer we were quickly using up (I tied the standard double fisherman's knot to join the two) and then maneuvered through the knot-passing process when the time came.
And down, down, down our teammate went over the edge of the 1,100-foot cliff at Horseshoe Bend, retrieving evidence. That had been our assignment for the day: to retrieve some items that had been spotted from the rim, believed to belong to a missing person. But as that task was being carried out, things changed when our teammate detected something more than just evidence. It was intermittent and faint at first, so down, down, down we lowered him, communicating via radio until he found the human remains.
As physically demanding, hot, and uncomfortable as the task sometimes was for those of us up on top, we knew our teammate, who was on his own below the rim, had the most difficult job of all... in more ways than one. Those of us tending to his lifelines from above frequently commented amongst ourselves about the long, grim task he was faced with.
Originally, the mission was expected to be fairly brief and wrapped up by noon. As it turned out, we didn't get back to Flagstaff until after 9 p.m. But we were glad to help bring closure to that search and that family.
Here are some photos from that day's long technical recovery mission near Page, Arizona...
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| The tech gear is loaded and ready. |
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| An NPS ranger shows my teammate some of the visible evidence below. |
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| We use the truck as an anchor for the main and belay lines. |
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| Randy works the edge, keeping an eye on our teammate below and communicating with him. |
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| The DPS helicopter drops a cargo net to our teammate for the recovery. |
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| The helicopter moves closer to the cliff and our teammate's location. |
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| Rather than raise Joel back up 900 feet, he's short-hauled to the rim. |
In other Coconino County SAR news...
From July 5th: Another find for the SAR dogs
I received this mission report from Cindy, the K9 handler:
"Last night at 2030 hours, the dogs were called out for a search on the San Francisco Peaks off the Weatherford Trail. We deployed from the center section of the trail, with the assignment of ascending to the summit starting at 2200 hours (appx 10,000'-11,000' elevation).
"After 3 miles and 1.5 hours of hiking, all 4 of my search dogs started to show alert signals telling me they were working scent. Each time they came to a specific point in the switchbacks we were hiking during our ascent, they would all begin to work up in elevation off trail then return to the trail. From this behavior, I was able to inform the strike team that I expected the subjects to be above us directly each time the dogs began to show their alert behaviors.
"Just another 2 switchbacks up, they all left the trail in a beeline straight up an extremely steep grade, cutting the next switchback entirely, directly to the subjects and gave simultaneous final responses. Both of the subjects were cold, shivering and wet from the light rain but, after some warming and a change of clothes, they both walked out with our strike team's assistance. They had no food, water, rain gear and the light they had was from their i-phone."
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