With a total of 57 days of operations for Penticton and District Search and Rescue (PENSAR) president Dale Jorgensen sums it up as “one heck of a year.”
Jorgensen who has been with the team for over eight years said that 2015 was a year of accomplishments and rewards.
“Our team, which was formed in 1974, was built to help to save lives and reduce suffering when called upon. I think we managed to fulfill that mission this past year and I want to thank all of our 34 dedicated volunteers who have committed so much time to training, training, training and then being available to respond when needed and of course to our local community who support us,” Jorgensen said.
There were too many operations to recall every task event, a total of 52 for the year, with PENSAR responding to numerous calls for searching for lost persons, medical evacuations from the backcountry, providing assistance to evacuate residents during the fire season and helping other search and rescue Teams.
With most years averaging around 30-35 events a year, 2015 was almost double PENSAR’s usual call volume.
Volunteers tracked 11,000 hours of time training and attending tasks.
Some significant rescues and operations that took place in 2015 include:
- The Six-day Cathedral Park Search in late June for two missing persons.
- Four medical evacuations from Skaha Bluffs for injured climbers in the first half of 2015 were higher than usual for the team.
- The Penticton HETS (Helicopter long line extraction team) was deployed numerous times throughout the region (Kamloops, Kelowna, Cathedral Parks, Skaha Bluffs and Manning Park) to rescue and evacuation severely injured persons from the backcountry.
- On July 24 PENSAR answered the call to a challenging evening rescue of a severely injured female which required the team to request the assistance of the RCAF’s 442 Squadrons Cormorant Helicopter. The hiker had fallen down over 300 feet into Smith Creek was stabilized and secured by PENSAR technical rope members on a steep cliff for several long hours before two RCAF SAR techs arrived via helicopter to evacuate the injured hiker to Kelowna Regional Hospital.
PENSAR also received support from many community members throughout the year.
- The Rotary Club contributed $25,000 dollars towards new rescue equipment that could be deployed in a new rescue truck which was commissioned early in 2015 replacing an aging 1992 Chevy Suburban.
- The Oktoberfest Society provided $4,000 so the team could make repairs to the Apex Mountain radio repeater.
- Medi-Quest Technologies of Vancouver donated four AED units to the team in July.
- South Okanagan Foundation provided a grant of $2,000 to the team to add more medical equipment to response units.
- After a break-in at the PENSAR compound – Penticton Honda stepped up and replaced the stolen generator.
Individual donations from community members and other businesses continued to come throughout the year and made all of the effort feel recognized and worthwhile PENSAR said in a press release.
“Foundational support from the City of Penticton and the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen are key in ensuring that this local community operated and driven service provided is maintained. We are a destination area for people who recreate in our outdoors and we are proud to be able to provide a service to the public and our partner agencies that support life saving,” Jorgensen said.
