Search and Rescue

Hello Everyone,

I recently joined a volunteer Search and Rescue organization. It’s a group of people who work with police to do ground searches for missing people, mostly in rural and wooded areas. You can get lost in the city too, it’s just that it’s harder to ask a bear for directions.

SAR combines a couple things I like: spending time outdoors, helping people, and the faint possibility of doing something badass. On my first day of classroom training though, I was skeptical. They were a bunch of nerdy keeners.

I probably shouldn't attend any sort of class without eating dinner first.

But I learned a lot, beyond simply how to read a map and compass (or a GPS unit). As much as I like the idea of playacting an action movie hero, I was reminded of something from my fencing days. The person who wins the match isn’t the fiery loudmouth making noise in practice the week before a competition, it’s the person who was in the gym eight months before, quietly putting in the time. When a kid goes missing in the woods, the natural instinct is to go running through the bush like the climactic scene in Last of the Mohicans. But in the real world, that’s as likely to hurt your chances of finding the kid as it is to do anything productive.

One of the turning points for me was when the organization’s president explained why they (the volunteer group) turned down the option of getting flashing green lights for their cars, the kind volunteer firefighters use when rushing to a scene. While a missing person is often an emergency, this is a group of (dedicated and trained) volunteers, which means they don’t confuse themselves with cops. They're not cosplayers who wish they could rip around and act important. They are serious about their craft and understand the risk of causing another accident on the way to a search. Turning down something cool (an emergency beacon that lets you mostly avoid traffic rules) tells you something: these are people who know what they are about.

They are the ones who do the slow, boring, meticulous work and don’t pretend like it's something else. They are the ones who put aside their ego or desire to be a hero, and work as a cog in a larger machine. It’s not flashy, but it’s very effective.

And that value shines when it matters most. A lot of search calls are for things like a hunter who gets lost and hunkers down for the night. It’s not ideal because their loved ones don’t know where they are but it’s not often life threatening.

Every once and awhile though, a kid wanders away from a campsite or a rural property and then it very much is life threatening. And that’s when you most acutely do not want a bunch of cowboys running around trying to be the hero. You want the process nerds who can direct search teams in an organized fashion. You want gear heads who can stay out in the bush in bad weather for hours on end. You want the AV kids who can fly a drone.

What you want is a bunch of nerdy keeners.

Wes