Juan de Fuca SAR comes to the rescue

A profile of the Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue leadership published in the aftermath of the February 2020 Sooke River tragedy, in which the team led the search and recovery. It names senior SAR manager Vickie Webber, deputy SAR manager Kathryn Farr and assistant SAR manager Barb Broster, and records about 50 volunteers whose response area is the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area but who have assisted across Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and even Washington State. Webber says "We've been around since 1982." The article traces a change in method from mass volunteer sweeps to mapped search areas, data and psychological profiling - Farr: "We get inside their heads and figure out what they likely have done" - and lists the team's techniques: tracking, dogs, horses, swift-water and high-angle rope work, and first aid. Webber dismisses television myths about cellphone pings and infrared satellites. Broster describes what the work gives back: "When someone takes your face in their hands and looks you in the eye and thanks you ... well that's something that's hard to explain." Webber recalls: "In one of my first searches, I returned a seven-year-old boy to his parents. That was more than 30 years ago, but the look on their faces was something that I'll never forget." She speaks candidly about the cost of body recoveries, which "take a very different energy", saying she has known SAR members who have had to walk away and that the work has sometimes contributed to marriage breakdowns and other lasting trauma.