Search and Rescue Stories in the News

Image Credit: Wikimedia / CC 3.0

Some SAR Stories I've collected lately and thought I'd share. If you have any links or search and rescue stories of your own to post, please add them in the guestbook or email me at contact@sarstories.com to be included in a future blog post.

Catch Me If You Can

When Robert Wood Jr. disappeared in a densely forested Virginia park, searchers faced the challenge of a lifetime. The eight-year-old boy was autistic and nonverbal, and from his perspective the largest manhunt in state history probably looked like something else: the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. Read this fascinating, 13-page story from Outside Magazine.

 

American Climbers Missing in Peru

A search team reached the base camp and spotted the apparent tracks of two U.S. mountaineers who had not been heard from since July 11th, when they set off to climb a 20,000-foot glacier-capped peak in the Cordillera Blanca range of northern Peru. Gil Weiss, 29, and Ben Horne, 32, both experienced climbers, were attempting the west summit of Palcaraju from the south. Read about the search, which included the use of satellite imagery, and then how the search ended.

Bright Idea! Hiker Saved by Flashlight App

A lost hiker on Maryland's Catoctin Mountain used an iPhone application to signal rescuers. Read about it on HLNTV.com. (I'm just sayin' ... but I think any lighted cell phone screen or other light source would have worked. Don't you? No app necessary.)

Boy Plucked From Wallace Falls

The 13-year-old Burien, Washington, boy who was rescued from a ledge just feet away from 265-foot Wallace Falls said he's fortunate he walked away from the ordeal with little more than cuts and scrapes on his feet. He narrowly escaped being swept over the falls and spent the night shivering on the ledge before being rescued by volunteers from the  Snohomish County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team. Read the story in the Seattle Times and watch a video of the rescue.