Badlands search and rescue searching for volunteers

Miriam Ostermann
Times Associate Editor

 

Whether they are needed for padding the bushes, rescuing people from damaged structures, or scanning the ground during evidence searches, the Badlands Search and Rescue volunteers often go unsung. Breaking the silence, the professionally trained volunteer rescue-and-search organization, which has fulfilled a vital need in Wheatland County and area for the past five years, is raising their profile and recruiting in Strathmore to increase their volunteer base that has declined recently.
Now functioning with only 10 volunteers, primarily from Strathmore and Drumheller, the association will be hosting a recruiting session on April 23.
“It’s like our firefighters, we don’t just give them a hose and say here put water on that,” said Scott Campbell, president and founder of Badlands Search and Rescue.
“We are unpaid professionals, we’re trained to a professional level. We can assist in a variety of situations and that is very vague and open and I did that intentionally because I would rather have somebody call me up tasking the agency, whether it be law enforcement, or municipal, or government, or whatever. I think there’s so much room for us to be able to help and work with different agencies.”
The province has approximately 1,200 volunteers at their disposal that are trained in rope rescue, avalanche training, incident command, advanced first aid and CPR, swift water rescue, urban search and rescue, tracking, and bone identification.
Those involved in the Badlands Search and Rescue Association participate in two training sessions a month throughout the year, including a 40-hour minimum standardized search and rescue skills course that places focus on gear and equipment use, basic first aid, survival skills, and basics of performing a search. The program emphasizes four types of searches – a hasty search, a nose-to-the-ground search, a highly efficient search, and an evidence search.
Campbell’s brainchild was established with the inspiration of his young son who liked to go exploring. Coming to the realization that he wasn’t satisfied with the current resources available, he set out to meet the need.
“I found out that we’re looking at three to four hour response times, and if my little boy gets lost or somebody goes missing that’s not acceptable,” he said. “So I started doing some talking, asking around and found lots of support through Search and Rescue Alberta and the local search and rescue teams said, ‘yes, there’s a need here for search and rescue.’”
Over the years the group has received steady financial support from local agencies, including the Cheadle Lions Club, the Alberta Fish and Game Association, Drumheller, and Golder Associates in Calgary who donated $10,000 for the purchase of rope rescue gear to assist in low and high angle rescue training.
The Badlands Search and Rescue Association helped in the missing person searches in Morley, Castor, for Ryan Lane, and the infamous Liknes and Obrien search efforts in Airdrie. The team has also assisted in natural disasters such as the devastating floods of 2013, forest fires, and even the water main disaster in Strathmore several years ago.
“I think it’s very valuable,” said Dwight Stanford, chief administrative officer to the Town of Strathmore. “In the past we’ve needed this kind of help and we had not been able to get it even though we’ve tried.”
The association is looking for operational and administrative volunteers and will be hosting a recruiting and information session at the Strathmore town fire hall from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. on April 23. For more information about the organization and opportunities visit www.badlandsearchandrescue.com.