Searching and Rescuing

As if she isn’t participating in enough activities, last year Seri set her heart on becoming part of the ESAR crew. Unfortunately, she had already missed the first training course and so she patiently waited till this fall.

Her first training was cancelled due to a horrible ice storm that we experienced. Typically ESAR trains in the dead of winter because they want to train the team members in the worst possible conditions so they are prepared to deal with any weather but the ice storm was a little too much.

She did great on her first training even though I was a tad concerned about her welfare.

Seems to me that it is never a good idea for your pack to weigh half as much as you do.

Course 2 was a little rougher and she caught hypothermia twice, came close to being evaced out but there was no way that girl was going to give up.

For all the training courses the children take everything they will need to survive in the wilderness for 48 hrs and then are expected to use it. Build their own shelter, start their own fires, carry and cook all their own food, all while learning how to search for and rescue others.

Course four was interesting as it was warm out but she didn’t think about changing from her winter pack to lighter clothing and having experienced hypothermia, she now got to experience heat stroke.

All in all she is now fully certified to participate in any rescue mission within the state of Washington and we are extremely proud of her!!!!!

Her first mission call had a meet up in Puyallup and when I wondered about what she would be doing, Matt gave me the “really, dear?” look.  Powell had blown up his house with him and two children in it four days before.  Sure enough that is where she was called.  They went to a recycling plant and dug through three tons of paper looking for any evidence.

It was especially neat for Seri because one of the items they were told to look for was any paperwork dealing with the LDS church.  Many of the crew had no idea what they would be looking for and so she served as kind of the “go to guy” for all religious documents to weed out the evidence they were looking for.

Here’s a clip which shows Seri and the crew (look for the blue ski hat).

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Volunteers-pore-over-10-tons-of-recycled-paper-for-Powell-clues-139186629.html?tab=video&c=y

At her certification ceremony with her good friend. 

It was really neat because not only did she get her certification but she also received a police coin from the police unit in Utah that is working the Powel case to thank her for her efforts.  The search did result in two key pieces of information.

Support your local Search and Rescue, go get lost.