Nepal Update: A Documentary and Photos From The HRDSN

With five weeks to go until I leave for Nepal, I've been learning as much as I can about the country and their only SAR team, which not only responds to calls for missing and injured trekkers but also to disaster situations, like earthquakes, floods, and landslides. The Himalayan Rescue Dog Squad Nepal, or HRDSN, also provides medical aid to remote villages and even started a school that defied Nepal's caste system and gender prejudice.

I just finished watching the one-hour documentary, A School of Their Own by Debra Kaufman, who sponsors a Nepali student. Debra went to Nepal to meet the child, and it was then that she discovered how the Riverside School's mission intersected with the country's fight for democracy and freedom. The school struggled to stay afloat during Nepal's bloody, 10-year civil war, during which the police accused the children of being Maoist rebels while the rebels themselves were forcibly drafting children over 12 years of age into their army.

I learned a lot about education in Nepal, the 10-year People's War, and the HRDSN's special school in this documentary, which "shows how children, even in the most extreme circumstances, can lead a nation to a better future."

And here are some photos from the HRDSN, taken by Ingo and other team members:

Below, Ingo distributes application forms for medical aid and numbers for the line of men. They will have their turn after the women and children have been treated. The villagers are Muslims, most from Rautahat. The former Hindu Kingdom of Nepal didn't come to their aid following a flood, but HRDSN did.

This next photo was taken in 2002. While the HRDSN's medical disaster unit stopped on its way to the Terai Flood disaster in Rautahat, they stayed overnight at a school compound in Lothar, Makwanpur District. The local people took that opportunity to line up their children for medical checkups by Ingo and the team. Most of these kids suffered from diarrhea and chronic bronchitis.

The first villagers arrived early in the morning at a HRDSN medical camp.

This is James Scott, an Australian trekker who went missing in the Gosaikund and was found 43 days later. This picture (with Ingo) was taken in 1992, a year after his ordeal, when James came back to thank his rescuers.

And this is Ingo today, with Tara, one of the HRDSN's next generation of rescue dogs.

This is Lobsang Ngodup, co-founder HRDSN in 1989. Ingo met Lobsang 37 years ago while trekking with his dog, Nelson, in the Himachal Pradesh. Up in the mountains at a place called Tiuni, there was a little shop run by Tibetan man (that was Lobsang) who sold dry yak meat. The two became friends and shared a dream of starting rescue dog teams in Nepal and India for earthquake relief.

This next photo was taken during a HRDSN student fitness training in 1999. The boy on the right is Karna Dura, who I'll be meeting in Kathmandu. Karna is now at the Lalit Kala Campus, studying business management and fine arts and, with some of his schoolmates, runs a cyber cafe.

This is another Nepali citizen I may meet. He (or she?) lives at the HRDSN headquarters at Shayauli Bazaar...

 And the, um... dish on the platter in this last photo (for now) is, I'm told, a delicacy. 

Nepal Adventure Update: A Visitor From The U.N.

I recently got some exciting news from Ingo Schnabel (pictured here), founder of the Himalaya Rescue Dog Squad Nepal (HRDSN).

While I'll be with Ingo and the others in Pokhara and Shayauli Bazaar, the squad will be visited by Adrian DeCastro, PhD., special adviser and counselor at the United Nations. Dr. DeCastro and some of his colleagues and potential donors are very interested in the HRDSN's work and want to see things firsthand in Nepal. This means a lot to the squad, including the potential for funding infrastructure and equipment they desperately need. So, I'll really look forward to meeting Dr. DeCastro and learning more about this unfolding aspect of the HRDSN story.

Oh, and I finally booked a flight... and then another flight... and another. Twenty-three hours and 17 minutes of flying time and 14 hours, 48 minutes of waiting in between those flights, and I'll be in Nepal. Phoenix to LAX to Hong Kong for a mighty long layover to Kathmandu. After a few days in Kathmandu, I'll take a short flight to my final destination: Pokhara.

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.

SAR and the Art of Hurry-Up-and-Waiting

This had started out as Yavapai SAR's (YSAR's) mission, since the search area was mostly in their county. But when a night and most of the next day went by without locating the subjects, our team was asked to assist.

The two men, one in his early 50s and the other in his 60s, had driven their UTV all the way from Camp Verde to where it eventually ran out of gas, a long way down a network of Forest Service roads somewhere between Beaver Creek and West Clear Creek.

Lucky for the stranded pair, who apparently had no provisions for staying out overnight in those cold and snowy/rainy conditions, they found shelter in a nearby line cabin—a structure used by cowboys out on the range—and were able to make a cellphone call to 911.

I heard they'd told dispatch they were cold, hungry, and thirsty but they weren't sure of their exact location, and the weather and road conditions were quickly deteriorating. So was their cellphone battery. And a cell tower ping provided only a very general area, so that gave us no additional information beyond what had been relayed to us by Yavapai County.

So south we went toward the Mogollon Rim with six Coconino SAR volunteers and a coordinator, towing our Mattrax (a Suburban with tracks instead of tires) and four snowmobiles, only to later realize the snowmobiles would be useless. There was snow on the ground and more coming down, but once off the pavement, there wasn't enough snow over all the mud and rocks to use those machines.

So wherever we'd go, we'd have to go in the Mattrax or on foot, the hard way. But we had such a long distance to cover, slogging through the muck wouldn't be practical or really possible. And then, how would we get the two men out if we located them? Using a vehicle was necessary.

First, we tried a shortcut to the search area, attempting to go in from the north near Stoneman Lake. As two of my teammates and I waited back at the furthest point our regular vehicles could go, the crew in the Mattrax continued on, successfully winching a large blowdown out of the way. Eventually, they were stopped by a 20-foot-wide, fast-running, swollen creek and steep bank on the opposite side. We'd have to go the long way in from the south.

So, back on the freeway we went, then 12 miles down Forest Road 618 (I think it was), heading lower in elevation where the snow was replaced by rain and the mud only got deeper. Once again, three of us and our coordinator waited for hours while the Mattrax crew did their thing.

Occasionally, when the precipitation let up, I'd get out of the truck to stretch my legs, slipping along the muddy road. At one point, I ventured into the darkness amongst the pinion–juniper and prickly pear to pee and sunk to the tops of my boots in mud. Then I got back in the vehicle to listen for more radio traffic, pick away at a really gross MRE I snatched from the coordinator's stash (because I'd forgotten to replenish the food in my pack), yack with my likewise-waiting teammates, and occasionally try to get comfortable enough to catch a few winks, which didn't happen.

Sometimes, going on a SAR mission means you're asked to stand by as backup. And I don't mind that at all (okay, I admit it; it's usually not much fun). Being a backup is important, and sometimes the backups turn out to be vital. In this case, though, I wasn't sure what kind of backup we three could provide, given that we had no other vehicle with us that could manage that kind of deep mud mixed with snow mixed with loads of rocks. Then again, we can't always anticipate what needs might arise, so wait we did through the night. At least we kept our coordinator company as he did his... well, coordinating and information gathering. I know he appreciated us being there.

At about 4 a.m., those of us doing the waiting were finally sent back to Flagstaff, towing the unnecessary snowmobiles. At that point, the Mattrax was headed back to base, low on fuel, but the stranded men had not been located. And that was still the case when we arrived back at the SAR building at 7:00. At that point, YSAR volunteers were returning to the search area.

Sometime later that morning, I got a message on Twitter from a YSAR member, telling me they'd finally located the subjects, who were in good condition. I'm sure they were extremely relieved to be back to warmth and food, home and family after two unexpected days and nights in that line shack.

 A Yavapai County SAR jeep used on this search

Photo courtesy of Jim Cobey, YSAR

Back From Ropes That Rescue

 

And, boy, am I ready for a full day at home in my PJs. Seven 10- to 12-hour days of rigging, rappelling, raising, and a lot of learning has left me tired, bruised, sore (from packing in and out heavy loads of gear and tweaking muscles in ways they aren't used to), punctured (with cactus spines), exhilarated, and much more educated about tech rescue than I was a week ago. 

Being an instructor-level course, it was a real challenge for me, but I've brought back a significant number of new tricks and skills and a much greater awareness of what's possible in the world of rigging and rope rescue.

In addition to all of the hands-on work, the class went into the physics behind anchors and pulley systems. I may not remember all of the details, but that information definitely gives me a better idea of why things work they way they do, not to mention what doesn't work and why certain setups would be dangerous.

Needless to say, the class was amazing. And so were my fellow students and the assistant instructors, who were also there to learn. All were very supportive, patient, and helpful to me when I occasionally (okay, frequently) got frustrated. At the same time, they encouraged me to venture outside my comfort zone and push myself.

I didn't go over the edge nearly as much as other participants, though, since I wanted to concentrate on rigging and belaying, which are skills I'll use with my own team more often than not at this stage.

If you'd like to see more (and larger) photos from the past week, see Ropes That Rescue Rigging Class Photos: Sedona, Arizona.

A Week Of Technical Rescue

My living room is filled with gear. A bunch is for cold-weather camping. The rest is a big pile of tech rescue equipment required for the Ropes That Rescue course I'll be taking in Sedona, Arizona, from Saturday, February 13th through the following Friday—seven straight days of rigging and knot-tying, rappelling, belaying, climbing (eek!), and mock rescues.

I'll be taking the Mountain Rescue Workshop, which concentrates on "a minimalist approach to mountain rescue procedures and teaches the access, stabilization and extrication of patients involved in mid-face free or aid climbing accidents." I'll be joined by 11 other students from Arizona and beyond for a week of physical activity and fun... and a little stress on my part, which always seems to accompany me on tech rescue trainings.

So I'll be back after class and will let you know how it went.

A Severe Out-Of-Bounds Injury

He's an experienced backcountry snowboarder. In fact, he's a snowboard instructor. And he did have one of the free winter backcountry permits required for entering the wilderness from the Snowbowl ski area. (Note: This permit requirement has since been discontinued).

But accidents happen, of course, and this was a bad one. The 28-year-old snowboarder lost control on some ice and slammed into a tree, breaking his femur with knee involvement, an obviously very painful and potentially life-threatening injury should shock become a factor.

The victim was fortunate, though, that he was accompanied by three friends, one of whom stayed with him while two went for help. And luckily, Ski Patrol personnel were still on the mountain. They quickly came to the aid of the injured snowboarder and packaged him in a sked. While search and rescue was en route to the scene, we were in contact with these first responders, who kept us apprised of the victim's condition and their progress down the mountain.

In the meantime, a large group of us SAR volunteers deployed the snowcat and three snowmobiles. In the snowcat were a driver, a co-pilot/navigator, and five others, including myself and two Guardian medics, one of whom is also a SAR volunteer. The plan was to get us as far in as possible in the 'cat and then for some of us to continue on foot (on snowshoes, of course) to rendezvous with Ski Patrol and the victim.

Eventually, the snowcat began to bog down in very deep snow, so the five us in the back got out and snowshoed instead to lighten the load. We caught up to the snowcat when it could go no further, and then three of us continued upslope as the sun set and the glow of the full moon permeated the fog. Despite the task at hand, I couldn't help but notice what a beautiful evening it was on the mountain, a far cry from conditions during our last rescue in the middle of a blizzard.

Soon, our whistle blasts were answered by Ski Patrol, and we veered left toward the sound. Not a minute later, we spotted our moving target, making fast downhill progress with the aid of a rope attached to the sked. We'd heard they had to make several technical lowers along the way.

Time had been of the essence from the beginning, but now rescuers were even more concerned about the patient's condition. The three of us SAR folks could see that Ski Patrol wasn't about to stop for us to catch up . They were making a beeline toward the lights of the snowmobiles, which had stopped well short of the snowcat because of a mechanical issue. So, we radioed the 'cat crew and told them to go back the way they'd come, to meet Ski Patrol and the victim further down. We then snowshoed as quickly as we could to rendezvous with the whole group and got there soon after Ski Patrol and the snowcat connected.

The victim was alert but in agony. There's just no painless, gentle way to bring someone down a mountain. Not with that kind of injury. Add to that the fact that his leg was too deformed to put on a traction splint, and you're talking one extremely miserable patient. It was too cold to administer IV fluids or painkillers, so he had to wait till he was loaded into the back of the warmer snowcat. I later heard that nothing touched the pain, and every slight bump or lurch of the snowcat made him scream, which was constant, I'm afraid.

My snowshoeing teammates and I walked out as the snowcat delivered the patient to a waiting ambulance.

All in all, the mission went very well and quite fast (though I'm sure it seemed like an eternity to the victim), thanks in large part to the coordinated effort between Ski Patrol and SAR.

See the article in the Arizona Daily Sun: Ski patrol rescues out-of-bounds skier