SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. — The people in Snohomish County tasked with finding lost hikers in the wilderness are now searching for more volunteers.
The Snohomish County Volunteer Search and Rescue team is down about 60 positions.
Eric Lembke has been a volunteer rescue worker for 25 years. Each one of them seems busier than the last.
"We've already had a bunch of different calls this year," he said. "It does take a lot of time. It does take a lot of energy."
It's time and energy fewer people seem to have these days.
The team's target is to have 500 volunteers. Meanwhile, the number of calls keeps increasing. Crews spent 1,705 hours working 56 calls in the first three months of this year. That's compared to 676 hours and 35 calls at this time two years ago.
Lembke worries about low staffing impacting crews' abilities to do their jobs.
"We're always looking out for each other. If we don't have enough people to have each other's backs it's going to be dangerous for us, as well as the people we're looking for," he said.
Part of the problem is the expectations of would-be volunteers. Videos of daring rescuers rappelling down ropes to save a stranded hiker routinely run on local news. It seems glamorous, but the day to day is quite different.
"It's very little glamour. It's mostly hard grunt work," said Board President Mike Loney.
Closer to reality are conditions that are difficult at best, miserable at worst. Cold, wet weather. Thick brush. Callouts in the middle of the night and 100 hours of state-mandated training.
Half of all applicants drop out.
An aging population means 60% of calls are now for elderly people missing with dementia.
"A lot of people can't afford to put their loved ones in a care facility so they take care of them at home. There's a fair amount of those who wander away and we go try and find them," said Loney.
It's difficult, draining work, but work that's so important to the community and rewarding for the dedicated few who choose to take it on.
If you think you have what it takes, organizers say after completing an eight-hour online training session you can often be training in the field within three months.
"When you go out there and you find someone, you can't even put it into words," Lembke said.
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