Arrowsmith Search and Rescue has been busy the last few weeks assisting with four separate incidents.
Only one of the searches took place locally, but ASAR manager Ken Neden told The NEWS that people need to be aware of the area they are going into and to make sure people are prepared.
“The big thing is to let somebody know where you’re going and what your plans are,” Neden said. “If somebody is just gone and you don’t have any idea of their plans, it just makes it that much harder to focus on an area to search.”
Otherwise, Neden added, people may not even be aware that somebody is missing.
Locally, Arrowsmith Search and Rescue members responded to the report of a father and his five-year-old daughter in the Top Bridge area who didn’t come home when expected on July 15, according to a news release from Arrowsmith Search and Rescue. The father and daughter, the release reads, had gone swimming in the later afternoon and were expected home by 7 p.m.
“Oceanside RCMP and 17 members of Arrowsmith SAR searched all through the night and mutual aid from neighbouring (search and rescue) groups was requested for the morning,” Neden said in the news release.
“They actually ended up spending the night in the woods. We were near where they were, but they didn’t hear (us) or were asleep or something and didn’t hear our guys calling,” Neden said. The two were found early in the morning near the Parksville Industrial Park, according to the release. Neden said the father had minor injuries, but was otherwise “OK.”
“Other than the little girl probably had a scary night, they were OK in the morning.”
Then on July 22, ASAR was called in to assist Nanaimo SAR with a search for a missing elderly man on Gabriola Island. Neden said in the release that Nanaimo SAR was responding to two separate calls at the same time and “required extra resources.” SAR members from Arrowsmith, Nanaimo, Ladysmith and Comox all responded catching the ferry to Gabriola. The man, according to the release, was found at about 10 p.m. and was brought out by stretcher to an ambulance.
On Juy 25, members of ASAR’s rope team responded to Lake Cowichan to assist in the search for a missing 82-year-old woman from Oak Bay.
“They assisted other Island rope teams in searching a large area with dangerous cliffs but found no trace of the woman,” the release reads. On July 27, BC RCMP E Division sent out a release that the search for the woman had concluded despite the 82-year-old not being found.
Most recently ASAR helped with the rescue of a woman clinging to a rock in the Kennedy River on July 27, according to a press release from Arrowsmith Search and Rescue. West Coast Inland SAR and Alberni SAR were responding to the incident and wanted extra resources on site.
“Due to the long travel time and busy summer roads ASAR members took a helicopter from their hall in Hilliers directly to the site to assist the other SAR teams,” Neden said in the press release. “The SAR teams were able to reach the women by using a technical rope system, lowering a rope rescue technician to administer first aid, and brought her up to safety.”
Neden told The NEWS that the woman thought the river was safe to swim in. He said the woman was “very lucky” she wasn’t badly hurt.
“You want to be aware of what the dangers are downstream,” he said. “Everybody wants to get in the water with the way it (the heat) is now.”
— with files from Arrowsmith Search and Rescue