Jan. 6—Many hikers feel exhilarated when traversing the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina, but far too often, those same mountains can become a tangled web of trees and rhododendrons, leaving hikers stranded and fighting for their lives.
When crises strike, the Haywood County Search and Rescue (SAR) squad jumps into action. Tasked with mountain rescues, the 41 volunteers of Haywood SAR tackle a range of rescues, from investigating calls from concerned loved ones to locating individuals in a bind on the trail.
A new documentary, "Safe and Found," a Jester Wallis Production, will take viewers behind-the-scenes and on-the-trail with Haywood SAR when it premieres Saturday, Jan. 20, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Haywood Community College.
Paying it forward through film
The film is intended to provide hikers with Preventive Search and Rescue (PSAR) information — aimed at reducing SAR's workload through preparation, education and information. The film will also show three first-person accounts of those who have been lost or lost someone to the unforeseen dangers of the wilderness.
"Through sharing the stories, interviewing the people involved in rescues and searches, that in and of itself teaches a lot of PSAR," said Haywood SAR team member Nancy East. "Then when they overlay interviews from some of us, it becomes obvious what the lesson is. We discuss what these people could have done better to avoid needing our help, whether they knew or didn't know they were going out in the wilderness to do certain things."
The PSAR tips presented in the film, like letting someone know where you plan to hike, are critical in staying safe.
"I think the number one thing is to never hike a trail without telling someone where you're going and when you expect to get out," East added. "It just sends so much information for us out the gate because if we don't know where to look for somebody, you are at such a deficit, a tremendous deficit, really."
Filmmakers Julie Gayheart and Austin DuFresne knew of East through her presentations about hiking safety. They brainstormed with her on how to share the hiking safety she discussed and incorporate the Haywood SAR team.
"They wanted to have a pro bono facet of their business, to do something like this film to pay it forward for the hiking community and not for profit," East said. "So it just felt like the right thing to say 'yes' to."
DuFresne and Gayheart said that East inadvertently inspired the stories in the film with an interview about what puts a hiker in danger: bad choices, bad preparation and bad luck.
"I've been the liaison and interviewed as part of it because it's sort of become my thing now to teach the masses how to stay safe and found and avoid needing search and rescue help," East said. "That all spurred from a search in the Smokies we were a part of. There was a death of a mother that really impacted my life personally, and I wanted to do more to prevent something like that from happening."
The mother had missed a turn to the Clingmans Dome parking area, East said, where she planned to meet back with her daughter, from the Forney Ridge Trail. She kept going a few miles on the Appalachian Trail, becoming lost. She was found dead a little over a week later from hypothermia.
"Usually, one decision point starts that downward spiral of someone winding up in a bind. Most of the time, people either figure out how to backtrack and remedy the error. Or worst-case scenario, they dig that hole deeper and, in her case, lose her life over it," East said. "It wasn't a rogue event that wouldn't happen to many people. It can happen to a lot of people and has happened."
Film depicts grim realities
Haywood SAR member Bill Zimmerman said the film shows the reality behind the searches and rescues people hear about in the news.
"I think a lot of people think of SAR teams as everybody lined up in a cornfield 30 feet apart, walking through, doing a grid search. That's really pretty rare," he said. "That does happen in some instances, but it's really more about a lot of the technical training that we have."
He said missions can range from a couple of hours and meeting folks at coordinates they shared via their phone or a few days for significant crises where a person cannot be contacted. Zimmerman said volunteers empathize by putting themselves in their shoes.
"One thing you can quickly identify with is, 'Hey, what if this was my brother or spouse that's out there?' You want everyone to get help," Zimmerman said.
Another Haywood SAR member, Kevin FitzGerald, is a retired National Park Ranger with extensive experience in land, water and air search and rescue, which made him a natural fit to manage SAR missions.
"When that call came in, it was like somebody needs our help and if we don't do this right, they may not live. And there was a lot of anxiety that came with that because depending on how much information you had, it could be a needle in a haystack or something less than that," FitzGerald said. "I think everyone goes through that. You feel a sense of responsibility and duty to help people, and obviously they need it, or else we wouldn't be looking for them."
FitzGerald said that to manage a search means directing all the volunteers, determining who's running an analysis that deciphers probability of detection, who's looking at clues, or who is punching info into a computer that spits out scenarios of where someone is if it's a search versus technical risk.
Cody Parton, a founding member of the Haywood SAR team and the assistance coordinator, said that a lot goes into managing searches, and it's critical to whoever needs their help.
"Search management is key in any search and rescue we do. We do a ton of training with that, several of our team leaders are working on incident management, trying to ensure accountability, personnel, organization," Parton said. "After that initial notification, it's just reflex tasking. What do we do to react to that?"
East said that sometimes with searches, you don't know the best route or way until you're in it. She used the example of a mission last winter where they rescued a father and son from out of state who wanted to take a hike off the parkway. Being that it was wintertime, the parkway was closed, so they decided to hike up to a spot they could just pull off to.
"The day got away from them, and then all of a sudden, they realized it was getting dark, they had no idea how to get back down to the car, but they had a signal and called 911," East recalled. "So we started hiking up this mountain—really rugged, steep terrain. It was getting cold, dark and icy as we were ascending."
They found the father and son, but the two didn't have proper gear for the icy conditions. The SAR team picked a different line of travel, one with many rhododendrons — a thick bunch that they traversed for hours.
"I was so bruised over my whole body. It took pretty much the entire night to get them out of there because we had to figure out how to get out," East said.
Missions require extensive preparation
The SAR team has to be prepared at any time to be called to a rescue mission.
"These guys go out when everybody else is at home beside the fire," FitzGerald said. "It's snowing to beat the band, and the winds are blowing 40 miles an hour or upward. People are missing and need help, and the conditions are getting worse — that's when they hit the road and head out."
Although emergency services get called to every scene, the SAR volunteers are the ones qualified to brave the trails.
"Standard emergency services will go to the trailhead. That's where it ends, though, right? So they'll be there with that truck. But somebody's gotta go the rest of the way," FitzGerald said.
Parton said a mission for each volunteer can last anywhere from one hour to 12 hours.
"We try not to work our folks more than 12 hours just because it's a strenuous activity. That's why we bring in assistance from other counties," Parton said. "We're very proactive, we're not reactive, we'll operate 24 hours a day if necessary. We'll run day shift and night shift."
Zimmerman said the adrenaline kicks in whenever they're called to a rescue. After they're alerted to a rescue, the first step is making sure the team is as prepared as a unit before they brave whatever storm lies ahead.
"The first thing we do on any scene is ask, 'Are we safe? Is this operation safe?' And then we go to help somebody, you don't jump in to cause a bigger problem," Zimmerman said.
And safety begins with preparation from the most to least experienced team members. Zimmerman said everyone on the team must be able to navigate, be self-reliant, undergo a patient assessment, have care and rope skills, and meet the team's physical fitness standards since the team's missions range from search and rescue, rope rescue to swift water rescue.
"We have to do a pack test every year. Everybody has to get around the lake with a 35-pound pack on your back in a certain amount of time. And some of the folks, like Cody, check our heart rates and our blood pressure coming and going — it's pretty rigorous," Zimmerman said. "There's just so many things, like the radio. If you're calling in a helicopter, how does that go? There's just an immense amount of training, and it truly never stops."
Parton said they have to be prepared for any scenario, which begins with a well-equipped "24-hour ready pack."
"Every case is a little bit different, and we adjust our equipment loads," Parton said. "We have the 24-hour ready pack, but we adjust it by the seasons. So this time of year, I've added micro spikes for walking on ice, heavier clothes and extra clothes for patients, but then when summer rolls around, I'll adjust it again."
The gear in Parton's "24-hour pack" includes personal hygiene items, a personal first aid kit, extra clothing, high-calorie and high-protein snacks, water, headlamps, batteries, ropes and more.
"The search teams will go through gear as a team to determine who carries what in their packs for the mission," Parton explained. "It's a very fluid thing when it comes to the equipment we're carrying in the woods."
But the team can't accomplish all of its goals without help.
"It takes eyes on the ground to find the person," FitzGerald said. "All the technology in the world will help eliminate things, but it won't help to actually find the person."
Thankfully, volunteers have stepped up to help. Haywood SAR has had as many as 200 people show up to voluntarily assist in a search and rescue.
"A big group of people show up and say, 'Hey, what do you want us to do?' It has to be a well-oiled machine in order to figure out, 'This is your expertise, so we're going to put you here," Zimmerman said. "As you can see, there's many layers to this versus the guys walking through the cornfield."
The Western NC Wilderness Fund
The art of Heidi Nisbett, who sketched scenes of retold accounts in the film and owns Sketching Summitts, will be sold at the "Safe & Found" film premiere and go towards the WNC Wilderness Fund. The fund was started by the Haywood SAR team to raise money for additional equipment.
"The WNC Wilderness fund is just a mechanism in order to make sure the SAR team has everything they need or anything extra that might not go under their budget," Zimmerman said. "So drone batteries, titanium carts, things like that."
Zimmerman recalled the instance of a couple whom the SAR team had guided out of the woods. They were so appreciative that they wanted to provide payment, but at the time, there was no way to donate to the SAR team, thus prompting the fund.
Since the team is composed of volunteers, a lot of the gear they use is personal gear, but as the fund has grown, they've been equipped with more standardized gear, making it easier to call for unified colors or types of gear when on rescues.
For more information, visit https://wncwildernesssafety.org.
