A summer of searches and rescues

LAKE COUNTY — According to Christy Rhine, secretary for the Lake County Search and Rescue team, LCSAR responded to 22 total search calls this summer, a number that is actually right on par with what the organization sees during an average year.

However, veteran search and rescue member and LCSAR’s current logistics officer Tara Carvey, wouldn’t consider this an average year.

“We’ve done one less search than last year, but it feels like we’ve done 20 more,” she said. “Some of the searches were so tragic and they went on for so much longer.”

Teams responded to four land searches in the last 60 days, with two taking place over the course of several days. On Aug. 14, after wrapping up a search for an injured hiker who had fallen over rocks in 15-foot increments several times before a final 40-ft. fall on Mt. Kakashe, rescuers were called in to search a swift flowing section of the St. Mary’s canal below Tabor Dam near St. Ignatius.

The stranded hiker search lasted for 24 hours and included about 20 search and rescue members, Rhine said. About 10 members went to the canal and five hiked to the top of the falls. Five stayed at the command center for the injured hiker.

“Only on rare occasions will we have two searches at one time,” Rhine said. “Our crew was actually split in half.”

Carvey praised the efforts of the many different agencies that had to work together throughout the summer’s tragic events.

“Even though [the searches] were a lot bigger, in the sense that when you go on days you kind of exhaust resources and we kind of wear thin, somehow we figured it out and we pulled together,” Carvey said.

On multiple occasions this summer, LCSAR worked closely with the county’s ambulance and fire crews, Tribal departments, and even Sanders, Flathead and Mineral county agencies.

“It’s been wonderful to work with them all and we now have a very nice working relationship,” Carvey said. “Even though we don’t train together constantly, it’s pretty neat that we can figure it out and work together well when we need to.”

The summer’s most physically and emotionally demanding search occurred on June 28 when a small plane went down near Dixon. LCSAR was called in to assist on Monday as witnesses recalled spotting the aircraft flying low in the vicinity of the Bison Range. Crews actually located the crash site on Wednesday, at which point the mission shifted gears to a recovery. An LCSAR team went in on Thursday and spent the night in the woods. After a challenging four days, the Lake County team pulled out at 5:30 a.m., with the event officially ending at 7 a.m. Friday morning.

“Plane searches are kind of in a league of their own because it’s was a large scale search with multiple agencies involved,” Rhine said. “It was the first large-scale search I have been on in six years with search and rescue.”

Four counties, Lake, Flathead, Mineral and Sanders, and both Lake and Sanders County Sheriffs Offices were involved, but search and rescue assumed the role of incident command.

“We made sure that all of the different agencies checked in with one person, so we knew for the safety of everyone where they were and for efficiency of the search that they were searching different areas,” Rhine said. “It was great to watch all these different counties and agencies come together and be able to work together.”

The day that crewmembers wrapped up tasks associated with the plane search, they received a call about a man who had sunk his Jet Ski and was treading water for about two hours before family members alerted search and rescue to the overdue boater.

In June, LCSAR had five land searches and three water searches and were on standby for mid-month flooding, and forest fires.

July saw similar numbers, but an opposite ratio of six water and two land searches. In August, there were three of each.

“Every search is different,” Rhine said. “Normally, we have six to nine searches a month on the lake. It does slow down for us after the summer and we typically will stop water searches around October.”

As autumn arrives, the frequency of emergency calls may decline, but the time LCSAR members devote to search and rescue does not. This is the time of year when trainings amp up and members are able to reflect on the team’s strengths and weaknesses.

One positive addition to this year’s operations is a new website that allows Carvey to send an automated message to search and rescue members’ cell and home phones with the click of a button.

“We were having huge problems because I’d have to call each person individually,” she said. “That wasted so much time, but this is instant, it does everybody all at once. It has increased our response time by 90 percent.”

Five members of LCSAR recently returned from the state’s fire training school near Livingston, Mont. Those who attended the four-day training were members of the organization’s new rope team.

“That’s a new venture for us as we’ve never had a real rope team before and have always had to call Flathead County to come down if we needed one,” Carvey said. “They did things like personal rigging, single and double lines, high and low high lines (like zip-lines).”

That training was fresh in their minds for a vehicle rollover recovery assist recently Monday in Sanders County.

“They did an amazing job,” Carvey said. “The mill levy money paid for this training and it is turning out to be worth the tax payers’ money.”

With a huge influx of new volunteers this year, Lake County has approximately 47 active search and rescue members.

“You don’t have to be 25 to 35 and in top physical shape to be in search and rescue,” Carvey said.

There are many different teams within the organization and specialization allows the group to be a more effective unit.

“We have a lot of members so that we can fulfill a lot of positions. All of those members put their time in,” Rhine said. “Our members dedicate countless hours every day to search and rescue.”