Hunters of the Lost

The stories and experiences of Whatcom County’s search and rescue teams as they work to save lives.

Thomas Meade sits in the back of a search and rescue van. The van is loaded with food, water, safety gear and first-aid equipment which helps searchers recover people from dangerous situations. // Photo by Will Story

Written by Will Story

A helicopter buzzed across the sky before stopping to shine a spotlight down on a single point in a marshy field. Search and rescue volunteer Audrey Alf, along with another member of the group, pushed their way through the blackberry vines and thistles, arriving on the scene. There, they found the older gentleman they had been searching for.

The man had gone out for a walk from his house and became disoriented, possibly due to memory issues. He ended up lost in the wooded farmland near where he lived, and his family couldn’t find him.

“He had lost his shoes and he was cold,” Alf said. “He didn’t know where he was, and he was standing next to a fence just kind of waiting for someone to come help.”

Found only a few streets down from where his house was, the search and rescue team carried him to a neighbor’s utility cart and took him home.

“I just got a little lost, I’m so sorry,” the man told them. “You had to go all this way and I started so much trouble.”

When Alf and the crew pulled into his driveway, the man’s wife came out and burst into tears. Then he started sobbing. Then everyone started sobbing.

“It wasn’t trouble at all,” Alf said with a grin. “This is what we’re here for.”

Missions like this are carried out all the time by Whatcom County Search and Rescue.

The Whatcom County Search and Rescue Council (WCSAR) is a community-funded group made up of six different units of volunteers. These units are called upon by The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office to assist those in need throughout the county in a variety of situations. This can range from carrying injured hikers out of the backcountry to searching for lost individuals.

Audrey Alf, president of Summit to Sound Search and Rescue, poses for a portrait. // Photo by Will Story

Audrey Alf is a volunteer and the elected president of Summit to Sound Search and Rescue, one of the groups that make up the council. Summit to Sound focuses on ground operations with groups like their K-9 search team, ground team and equine team.

Over the past few years, Washington parks have been flooded with more and more people wanting to get outside. During the pandemic, people had to turn to other forms of recreation and entertainment, increasing the popularity of parks and traffic on trails across the country. Aside from the increase in people going outside, outdoor recreation is becoming more dangerous as climate change causes unpredictable weather conditions to become a common occurrence.

Now more than ever search and rescue teams are vital to help those in need. The situations searchers are put in vary significantly. Frequently, these missions are all about knowing nature and understanding what it’s like to be in survival situations. People of many different skill levels and backgrounds volunteer their time and equipment.

Volunteers are on call 24/7 to drop what they are doing, go out and assist people in need whatever the situation might be. Many design their lives around being ready at a moment’s notice.

“There’s not really an expectation that you drop everything, but most people do. They’ve created a lifestyle where it allows them to just up and leave,” said Thomas Meade. “I leave work and when I was in school, I left school. It’s not something you can plan around.”

Meade is a volunteer with Bellingham Mountain Rescue and has worked with the organization for the past two years. Bellingham Mountain Rescue works throughout Whatcom County’s backcountry where they help injured hikers off trails and climbers off mountains.

Meade grew up in Washington State and has been a skier and outdoors person his whole life. Getting into mountain rescue is his way to give back to the community he explained. When he’s not helping with mountain rescue, Meade works as a ski patroller on Mount Baker.

Thomas Meade poses for a portrait. // Photo by Will Story

Calls happen any time of year and happen sporadically, especially during summer and winter months. Seasonal conditions and weather events like flooding may impact the number of calls.

The goal of a search could be to locate a missing person, yet they are also used as a tool to confirm that someone is not in a given area. If necessary, the teams are called upon to retrieve bodies for families who have lost a loved one. Trying to bring closure to families is an important part of what they do.

However, sometimes the searchers never find what they are looking for.

“There’s a few [searches] that I felt like we just didn’t have enough time to look, and we might have found something if we could look more,” Alf said. “There are so many variables when we go out that it often feels like a needle in a haystack.”

Some searches have a much greater psychological impact. As the mother of a 4-year-old, the most difficult searches for Alf are ones involving kids.

“All I can think of is somebody in the same boat as me thinking that they need to protect their child, yet for some reason couldn’t protect their child in the moment, and now something horrible happens,” Alf said.

Volunteers are never required to respond to every mission. For some, missions could be happening in an area that is traumatic to return to, or the situation is too close to one they have been in. Alf explained that there’s a difficult line volunteers like her walk when deciding to go out on a mission.

“If somebody could save my child, why wouldn’t I work to save their child? But if I’m so emotional or distraught the whole time that I can’t do my job safely, effectively, then I shouldn’t be there,” Alf said.

In situations like these, volunteers have to trust that the other people they work with can handle the situation.

“Sometimes I have to kind of evaluate that decision and trust that the other folks that are there are going to do what they can to find that kid or whatever the case might be,” Alf said.

Over time, missions can take a toll on the mental health of search and rescue volunteers.

After searches, the units take time to debrief, addressing any issues that might have arisen while in the field. During particularly difficult missions, this debrief includes discussing a mission’s psychological impact. Volunteers have access to the sheriff’s department support officers to help.

These support officers check in on volunteers when called upon, offering counseling if necessary. Alf explained how a few members of Summit to Sound are also trained in critical incident stress response.

One challenging mission Alf described was a search for a dementia patient, who had gone missing after walking away. It was towards the end of the day and the team had looked farther than they thought he could have walked in the amount of time he was gone. All the searchers were exhausted from searching all day and night, when somebody saw a person walking from across a park.

“We were going to go check in with him and for some reason we didn’t. And we didn’t find the person that day. So, I went home thinking, what if it had been that person?” Alf said.

Later that night they found him. He had fallen down a cliff and was no longer alive.

“It still bothered me thinking, what if that had been him and he hadn’t yet fallen down the cliff? And if we had gone and talked to him, maybe he wouldn’t,” Alf said.

The team held an after-action meeting where they discussed the situation with the deputies who ran the search. There, they concluded the person they saw was definitely not who they were looking for.

“[It] really put my mind at ease that we didn’t neglect to do something that would have saved a life,” Alf said.

Despite the challenges, there are many positive aspects to volunteering.

When Alf moved to Bellingham 12 years ago, she had almost no relationship with the outdoors. She realized one of the best ways she could learn would be by joining a local search and rescue team.

“I’m pretty much guaranteed not to get lost or have an issue if I’m learning with the pros, right?” Alf said.

Training with Summit to Sound gave Alf the outdoor experience she was looking for, while teaching her how to stay safe. Others are drawn to search and rescue because they want to use the outdoor skills they’ve developed to help save lives.

Audrey Alf stands in a storage facility for search and rescue vehicles and equipment. // Photo by Will Story

“It’s nice to put my skills to use to help people on their bad days,” Meade said. He started his career in a ground-based unit similar to Summit to Sound, working up to a mountain rescue unit, building his skills over time.

No matter what it is you are up to, the outdoors can be dangerous. Alf explained there are a number of things you can do to recreate more safely.

“Always carry your 10 Essentials, that’s rule number one,” Alf said. The 10 essentials are a set of basic items recommended to have with you when exploring the great outdoors. Among the items on the list: first aid supplies, food, water, and navigation equipment like compasses and maps.

Make sure you know your route. Make sure you know your ability. Make sure you know where you’re going. Check trip reports to see what the conditions are like where you are going. Make sure you tell someone where you’re going especially if you’re going to a more remote location.

Yet if all your preparations fail and you end up in a bad situation, there are those who are ready to help.