GINTA – Search and Rescue funding must be included in budget planning

I HAVE NEVER been in a situation where I had to be rescued by one of the SAR groups in our province. But like everyone else, I have been hearing and reading a lot of stories about people needing rescuing from all sorts of sticky situations, including the recent one of the snow-biker near Lumby.

While unfortunately not all of them have a happy ending, the fact remains: Search and Rescue volunteers are out doing everything they can.

Our local group, Kamloops Search and Rescue KSAR, had 42 calls last year and 72 multi-day searches, amounting to 3,500 hours. That’s a lot of time away from home, family, work, or sleep (for some volunteers it is all of them combined.)

I wrote about it before – either arguing for the need to know what we’re heading into when we make plans to be in the great outdoors, no matter the season, and recently about the heartless break-ins at the Nicola Valley Search and Rescue compound.

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Daniela Ginta is a mother, scientist, writer and blogger. She can be reached at daniela.ginta@gmail.com, or through her blog at http://www.danielaginta.com.