The BYU student SAR found lost in the mountains last weekend came to tell her story and bring us a thank you card and a large box of chocolates. She was cute. I wished I had made it to an earlier meeting to get my pager so I could have participated.  She spent two nights in the snow behind the first range of mountains stacked above the valley and made it through without frostbite or hypothermia, despite not being able to start a fire by trying to burn her coat pocket, sandwich or other items.

Chocolates weren't the only treat. One SAR member brought boxes of donuts that also circulated the room. It's tradition for anyone who gets their picture in the paper or on TV to treat the entire group next meeting. Everybody wins. The sergeant bought pizza and ice cream for the group as well.

The most exciting news of the evening is that next summer, maybe, we'll get to jump out of a helicopter into the dam as part of SCUBA rescue training. One of the most useful things I picked up tonight was a hint on how to up your chances of getting a Life Flight ride in a mountain rescue situation: always have your axe and crampons handy. No one's likely to be taken up an icy/snowy mountain without them. 

Soon the first year will be over and I'll become a full SAR member. I'm counting the days.

Day Three 12/9/00
I've been buried for nearly ten minutes now. I can't slow my rapid breathing because I've already breathed most of the oxygen from the air trapped around my face under the snow. I didn't expect to find myself in this situation when I showed up for the monthly training exercise this morning. We spent the earlier morning studying avalanche safety and practicing searches with beacons and probes. Now, just before going home, it was time for K-9 training. Karen, another proby, and I lay down in shallow troughs while other team members shoveled snow over us. It felt something like a day at the beach until the wet, white sand sealed us off completely from the atmosphere. Any minute now, a dog will find me and dig me out. In the mean time, I get a small taste of what it would be like to be an avalanche victim.

A very small taste. I have too much oxygen trapped with me. Even though my breathing is fast, I feel none of the panic that carbon dioxide buildup induces. At any moment, I could simply stand up if I wanted to. The snow isn't deep or heavy or thick enough to cement me in place. I haven't been bounced over any rock bands or richoched off any trees. I want to know what it's like to be caught in a real slide, but pray that I never find out.

A dog has found me now. It's sniffing at my head and has begun to dig. Another second and I feel its paws against my hood, then it proceeds down my back, pulling the snow away, my first K-9 full body massage. If I ever were buried for real, there would be no sweeter smell than that thick, pungent dog breath in my face.

I'm sitting up now, petting the dog's thick blue-gray fur and thanking it, and when I look down hill, I see that Karen's burial place remains undisturbed. Maybe I smelled worse. When a short haired lab finds her, it discovers the feet first. From the moment it realizes that these are feet, it abandons them and moves to dig out the head. "Are they trained to do that?" I ask Kirk, who tells me they are not. They instinctively know what needs to be done.

Day Twelve 12/18/00
My first call out came half an hour before work ended. The pager read 05-30-18. Canyon-Bridal Veil Falls-Urgent. I packed up my computer and headed out the door. "750 10-17 from 4J," I said into the radio. I'm on my way from Springville. Within half an hour, I was pulling on my pant shells and strapping ice tools to my pack. I was put on team three and Olin drove us to the base of the ravine where David, an experienced Orem climber, had taken a forty five-footer off the tallest continuous ice route in the Lower 48 and bounced and slid over rock and snow while climbing alone (a major NO-NO). His tools, helmet and gloves were spread out across the snow above him, and he had scooted himself down to a point where he didn't feel like he would slide farther.

If he hadn't had a phone with him, he would have spent the night. If he had, he'd never have lasted. He was already cold and in shock by the time I reached him with blankets, which I spread over him. Barry had set up anchors while CJ, Chris and others had checked his condition, put on a neck brace, and had him breathing through and oxygen mask. David's eyes were clear and he seemed calm, but still grimaced and moaned softly in pain as we rolled him onto a backboard, secured him with webbing, then lifted him into a stretcher to transport him down the ravine. Four belay stations secured the stretcher with rope as four and later six SAR members carried and slid it down the rocky ravine to waiting television cameras, journalists, an ambulance and a very appreciative family below. His father and grandfather passed around firm handshakes and heartfelt words of thanks. "I don't know what we'd do without you guys," his grandfather told me.

While we were preparing to carry Dave down the mountain, we got another call for a plane crash against the mountain above Provo. This turned out to be a false alarm, though six SAR members were immediately dispatched to investigate.

"How did you like that for a first rescue?" Sergeant Tom asked me. "Loved it," I replied.

"It's not often," a friend told me some years ago, "that you get a chance to help someone out when it really matters." That's why I joined SAR and I'm very grateful to be a part of this team and to get my first real taste of what we do. Gotta run, the news comes on in ten minutes and we might be there.

Day Seventeen 12/23/00
The second callout came as I was packing to head north and spend a few days with family for the holidays. I arrived at Hobble Creek canyon just after the missing elk hunter was seen from the airplane and walked to the road on his own.

Day Twenty Nine 1/4/2001
CPR certification class began an hour before our monthly meeting. Suzette covered all the basic first aid information and we'll finish up with CPR Saturday morning before heading to Powder Mountain for National Ski Patrol level one avalanche certification training with seven other Utah counties in preparation for the Olympics. The meeting was informative and enjoyable and enhanced by the ice cream supplied by four SAR members whose picture made the paper. Near the end, Bob, our Proby Training Sergeant, suggested that all the probies introduce ourselves once more. When my turn came, I began seconds before my cell phone began ringing with its Indiana Jones ring. "We all wish we had theme music," said CJ.

Day Thirty One 1/6/01
CPR certification took a few hours. Now I can tell the girls that I'm certified in mouth to mouth. We left for Powder Mountain above Ogden at noon. We were split into various teams to search a contrived avalanche zone, using dogs, beacons and probes to find 14 "victims" which were mostly dummies buried in the snow. I got to drive the "hearse" with Karen, which meant we rode the black toboggan down the hill, using an ax to control our speed, and then haul the victims back up to the road. I'd say more about the day if something much more exciting didn't happen.

Half the SAR team stayed in town in case we got a call out, but it turned out there was no need. Because the call out came as we drove back into town. Bob rolled down his window as we passed on the highway and shouted that we had a call out. "That's funny," we each said. "My pager didn't go off." Then our pagers all went off.

A small plane without appropriate instruments was flying through the fog from the Spanish Fork airport to Provo. They got disoriented in the fog. As they came down through the fog a mile or more past the airport, they hit the frozen lake and thought they were landing in a field. That illusion vanished after a quarter mile when the nose of the plane plunged through the ice.

The copilot helped the pilot (who had two broken ankles and many lacerations) onto the wing--the cockpit was partially submerged--then walked, waded and swam to the airport for help. SAR showed up with the hovercraft, a zodiac raft and two ice sledges and sent teams out in wet and dry suits to search for the plane in the dark. The hovercraft finally found it using the ELT (emergency location transmitter). Because most of the ice was broken up around the plane, the hovercraft landed directly on the wing where they loaded the pilot on and later transmitted him to the Zodiac where half a dozen SAR members dragged him over the ice to the waiting ambulance. After spending numerous hours wet and cold, some people expressed surprise that he was still alive, but he seemed quite coherent though in significant pain.

The pilot and copilot barely new each other. The copilot was riding to decide whether he wanted to buy the plane. I'm guessing the answer is "No."

The next day I boarded a plane for Dallas, hoping it would feel a little strange to fly after staying up till 3:00 a.m. the night before on a plane crash. No such luck.

5/10/01
When the first page came a few minutes past midnight, I chose to ignore it this time. I needed to catch up on my sleep. I needed to be fresh enough to work effectively the next day. I needed to watch out for my health. And I was just so tired, I was going to sleep well. The search would go fine without me.

This is the thing: they tell us the Olympics will be more than twice as busy as the last two days and we won’t have the luxury of perfect summer evenings or easy going over dry trails.

6/16/01
Today I attended my first mission that ended in death. It actually began with death, since the victim had been trapped against a tree and held underwater by a swift current for at least half an hour by the time any units were able to reach her near Diamond Fork. Rather than take the time to set up upstream anchors and get a boat in the water, someone took a saw out and cut the limb from the tree. Other units were waiting downstream where the current ran less fiercely to pull her from the river.

With CPR, they took her from flatline to ventricular fibrillation--a sort of fluttering of the heart, but even with the defibrillators, it seems there was nothing they could do. After a few tries, they loaded her into Life Flight which had parked on the road and flew her back to a valley hospital.

Watching the helicopter lift off and soar low over the mountains was a beautiful sight but I couldn't help but think how much more so it would have been had the girl been savable. She was kayaking with her husband and there was no way to avoid crashing into the tree which appeared just around a bend in the river. Once she was pinned against the limb there was nothing that could be done. This inspired me to write the Swiftwater Safety page because few people really know how to react in such situations.

6/30/01
Today (Saturday) was a repeat of Thursday. First a call on top of Timp. I started up the trail--Thursday night planning to camp at Emerald Lake 5 miles up the trail and three or four thousand feet higher to continue a search at first light for a girl trapped in cliffs, and this morning pushing the stokes (wheeled stretcher) up the trail to fetch a girl with a broken ankle half way down the glacier (above Emerald Lake). But before getting far (just past First Falls), Life Flight (Thursday) and Air Med (Saturday) came and carried out the victims for us. Lloyd caught a ride up the lake Thursday night along with the RP (reporting party--the hiking partner of the stuck girl who hiked for help) and we waited till they reached us in case they had any more troubles, which they didn't.

While we were on the trail each day, we had another call to the other side of the canyon--South Fork and Bridal Veil Falls--for overdue and injured hikers. These calls were finished up by other SAR members just as the Timp missions ended.

This evening we had another call for a water-skier who was run over by his own boat. Another boat was towing them into the Provo Marina as I headed out with Bob on a wave runner. It was just like Bay Watch, minus the bikinis and fake CPR.

The victim had half a dozen gashes from his ankle to his butt where the prop had sliced him open. The veins had for the most part sealed themselves shut and there wasn't much bleeding left. Lloyd, an EMT, climbed into the boat from his wave runner and I picked it up for him. He had taken the wrist stop cord with him, but I was able to drive by holding the button out with my fingers. Air Med came for this victim as well, though it may not have been necessary since he was in fairly good condition, considering, and an ambulance was there waiting. But if you were a rescue copter pilot, wouldn't you want to fly every possible mission?

Another boat brought in a pair of skis they found belonging to the victim's boat. One ski had been nearly chopped in half. Rescue season has definitely begun.

7/4/01
Happy Independence Day! We spent half of it kicking people off Mount Nebo because it was on fire. The fire had spread from Birdseye and was moving quickly up the dry mountainside toward Payson Lakes. Most people were very cooperative and grateful for the warning. At times enormous billows of red smoke filled the sky, reflecting in the lakes. Later in the evening when we nearly had the canyon clear, smoke filled the air and ashes still showing the intricately veined patters of aspen leaves fell over our cars. They say they'll have the fire contained by Monday.

7/5/01
Our monthly meeting was cut short tonight by a drowning in Salem Pond. For such a small pond (maybe 150' across and 300' long), it takes far too many lives.

By the time we were called, the victim had been out of sight for nearly an hour. This wouldn't be a rescue but a recovery, which meant slow and methodical. A dog was taken out in a boat first. Then cameras were suspended underwater and viewed from above. Air Med flew over and looked down from above. Finally, ropes were tied across the lake and SCUBA divers formed a chain to comb the bottom toward the PLS (place last seen).

I didn't have full dive gear, but Tom wasn't going in and lent me his. The bottom was filled with about eight feet of seaweed. We swam over it and probed the visible holes beneath. Divers on either end held the ropes and everyone in between held the BC of the diver to his left. On the far side we divided into smaller teams of four and three and made another sweep. I wished I had a hood. And a full length wet suit. In my shorty, I really felt the steep drop in temperature at the thermoclines. For a moment on each pass, it was enough to make me think I was going to get a headache, but then it would pass.

For the third sweep, Karen lent me her skins which warmed me up considerably. I got in a team of two with Shay--a serious caver and not one satisfied to merely skim the top of the seaweed. We made the next two passes right on the 30' deep lake bottom, emerging looking like the creature of the black lagoon with seaweed wrapped around our tanks and BCs.

By then it was growing dark. The flashlights helped some, but the search was called off till morning. The dog went out again at 6 and divers at 7, and after 11, the page came out announcing the completion of the call.

While on the lake bottom I had a chance to wonder what I would do if I came face to face with the body. It would be weird but I'd be okay, I'm sure. The lucky thing about rescue work is that you have a job to do, something to focus on, and that's all that really matters. I guess people die all the time and I'm glad not to know them. That way it's not too hard when they go. I say this knowing full well that I might feel differently someday if I ever find a victim still alive and lose him or her on the way to the ambulance.

7/6/01
The pager went off today just as I left work for a late lunch. I spent an hour and a half or so on a search for an elderly man who had left his new care facility yesterday afternoon. We combed the neighborhood, searching in dilapidated barns and knocking on doors. In the 90+ degree heat, I dreamt of last night's thermoclines and missed that cold headache.

I couldn't afford to miss too much work if a life wasn't on the line and went back finally. Monitoring the radio I heard that people found clues (people who may have seen him yesterday just after he was last seen at his facility) but he hadn't yet been found.

8/4/01
I can understand that accidents happen.  People die all the time.  But last night was different.  Lehi Police Department Officer Joe Adams was shot and murdered by someone with a $500 warrant out for his arrest who Officer Adams had stopped for weaving all over the road.  Drugs were also found in the car.  How can people treat life so lightly as to kill just to escape a relatively light charge, especially when his identity had already been called in to dispatch and there was no chance of getting away with it???!!!! 

Officer Adams had cuffed one arm when the man pulled out a hidden .22 pistol and they exchanged perhaps four shots each.  The man was wounded and drove away while a passenger saw Adams lying on the ground and phoned 911.  The perpetrator was later apprehended in a 7-11 parking lot due to his wounds.  When questioned later, even when no longer intoxicated, he expressed no remorse or concern about Adams, but asked repeatedly what would become of his illegal drugs.

This man was found handcuffed with Adams' cuffs.  Bullets from Adams' gun were in his body.  Despite all this, it may well take a dozen years before (if) he received the death penalty for willfully  killing someone who risked his life every day to keep the streets safe, all for around $14 dollars per hour.  I'm not generally in favor of the death penalty, but if it came swiftly in this case, I wouldn't complain -- not out of vengeance but to show that, despite Hollywood, killing police is not to be taken lightly. 

Officer Adams' funeral is Wednesday. He had been on the force for a few days under three years. He has a wife of less than four years and a boy only a few months old.

8/5/01
Someone got ledged out above the high cliffs on the north west corner of Cascade last night. We located him by flying an airplane overhead and he told us on his dying cell phone when they passed over.  Any quick approach to his area--any route that would get us there before morning--would be treacherous even during the day time, so we left him there and Life Flight picked him up this morning.  The night was warm enough and he had no medical issues, so we judged it not worth sacrificing our own members' safety merely for his comfort.

8/8/01
I've never seen so many police cars in one place. Hundreds of patrol cars not only from counties all over Utah, but from at least two neighboring states as well, attended the funeral.  A letter was read from a couple who Officer Adams had assisted very courteously in the last few minutes before being shot.  The man is an attorney and offered free lifelong legal services to the family.  Any other contributions to be made to the family may be directed through the Lehi Police Department, 152 N. Center, Lehi, UT 84043.

8/20/01
It's always convenient when I'm already up and in the neighborhood for middle-of-the-night callouts.  I was just leaving Provo at 1:30 a.m. after hanging out with friends to watch the best electrical storm of the year when a callout came for three overdue kids from New York on Timpanogos.  Olin arrived next and we were sent up as the hasty team.  We found the three in good shape, soaked and cold but in good spirits, just below 2nd falls.  Another pair of hikers heading up to catch the sunrise from the summit had loaned them extra flashlights and warm clothes, and once they saw our headlights in the parking lot, they got oriented again and were heading down the trail.

9/3/01
Search and Rescue is more driving than anything else.  Moving to the south end of the valley, farther from the most popular mountains and canyons, means I usually arrive on-scene just in time to turn around and drive back home.  If only I had driven my bullet bike to last night's last call out on Timp--riding all those perfect, sharp corners around the Alpine Loop to the Timpanookee trailhead would have made the trip worth it.

9/21/01
Ten days after the terrorist attacks and what can I say?  The worst part, perhaps, is knowing that it wasn't a one-time shot.  Tomorrow morning I'll run down the mountain from a camping trip for Weapons of Mass Destruction training.  Mass casualty.   We'll triage and treat dozens of "victims" at 7 Peaks (our only Olympics venue).  I just hope not to have to use these skills this coming winter. 

On a lighter note, I stopped by the Krispy Kreme drive through on my way home from a call out yesterday evening (someone unconscious and bleeding near Silver Lake -- the far corner of the county, and of course I only got half way there when Life Flight picked up the victim). I ordered a dozen donuts and handed the girl at the window my credit card.   Looking down at the star still on my door, she gave it back and said, "Forget it.  That's okay."  Thanks, Krispy Kreme, for supporting law enforcement and rescue operations!

11/21/01
We hadn't had a callout for a few weeks when today's came.  A four-wheeler had tumbled into a deep canyon above Salem and the rider had broken his collarbone on the way down.  Lucky for him, he didn't go all the way to the bottom with his machine. 

I arrived at the foot of the mountain and hopped into Shawn's truck for a ride up the steep, twisting road to the narrow trail.  We ran down the trail with a few extra ropes and gear in case they were needed to raise the victim.  I helped carried the litter down from the trail and saw that the victim was our own Kent, a SAR member.   "Oh," I thought, "it's just an exercise since we haven't had a call out for a while." 

We proceeded through the exercise as normal anyway, tying Kent in, raising him to the trail with ropes anchored to trees and brush above, then carried him to a truck and drove him down the hill to the waiting ambulance.  Kent even asked me to adjust the spider straps a time or two for comfort and I gave him my fleece jacket for a pillow.

"Who's going to get his four wheeler?" Olin asked as we climbed back into Shawn's truck for the ride down.  "What four wheeler?" Turns out it was real.  I'm glad I didn't slap Kent on the shoulder and say "Did that hurt?"

12/6/01
Tonight was our December meeting and marks one full year on SAR.  I can't believe how fast the time has gone!!!!  Sitting in the meeting, writing names on the board for elections for next year's officers, eating pizza donated by the Springville Pizza Hut, it felt like I was counting votes for CJ and this past year's officers only days ago.

We've helped many people over this past year, and I was involved in at least two rescues where the victims would have soon died without our intervention.  It's been a calm year.  There were a few deaths as well, but in those cases there was absolutely nothing more we could have done.  I've enjoyed the midnight hikes, the slight edge of adrenaline that seeps in when the pager goes off for a call, helping people out of uncomfortable and dangerous situations, the urgency when the clock is ticking and you know you can make a difference, and the interaction with other team members.  I'm looking forward to a lot more of the same.

Kent appears to be doing fine though clavicles can be pretty painful in the day or two following a break (did mine once playing hockey).  Of course there was a bit of razzing, and Mark said "Now you know why I walked off the mountain when I broke my leg."

We heard a statistic from a survey done by the Salt Lake Tribune (?) regarding the lawsuit suing many other Utah SAR teams for the search where a two-year old wandered away from his father's truck while he was hunting and was found a day or more later buried under a light layer of new snow.  This was a terrible tragedy that touched everyone who learned of it.  It's like Mike told me on a Sunday morning search for a runaway 9 year old last month, "Every child is our child."  It hit us again when the father committed suicide before serving a brief prison term for negligence.  Now it has come back once more with this lawsuit.  There's no telling exactly how it will come out, but 94% of the public surveyed takes the side of the SAR teams involved in the rescue effort.  Our own team has redoubled efforts to carefully document actions taken on calls, and we feel very confident that we train hard and execute rescues in a skillful manner that will protect us in any event of such a suit coming against us. (I was just sent this poignant, humorous example of the public support I'm talking about: http://www.harktheherald.com/article.php?sid=32615)

Olin, Shawn, Lora Jean, Karen and I will take our proby test on all the skills we've acquired or practiced throughout the year on the 13th and be sworn in as full members in our January meeting, when we'll be joined by 7 new probies just in time for the anticipated heavy demands of the Olympics.  Welcome!