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Answering the call: a North Shore Rescue profile

“It’s your job to keep yourself alive. It’s my job to come and find you. And I will.” This is the message Connie DeBoer shares with schoolchildren as director of public information and education for North Shore Rescue.
Connie DeBoer

“It’s your job to keep yourself alive. It’s my job to come and find you. And I will.”

This is the message Connie DeBoer shares with schoolchildren as director of public information and education for North Shore Rescue. She has spoken with thousands of kids over the years during community outreach presentations and stresses the Hug a Tree program.

The program, developed through U.S. search and rescue teams, tells kids to say put and not move around if they get lost so searchers can find them.

It’s a message that adults need to hear as well, she notes.

Too many times, subjects wander around trying to find their own way after getting lost but that may just make them harder to locate, and could lead to more danger, such as falling into a gully or off a cliff edge.

“There’s no one else there that’s going to keep you alive but yourself until we can get there,” says DeBoer.

Prevention is key, and DeBoer and other members of the team emphasize outdoor safety and preparation first in cutting down the need for rescues. But if someone does get lost or injured, staying in one place and being able to take care of yourself (such as staying warm and having enough water) until help arrives could greatly affect the outcome.

As well as providing education and information, DeBoer is one of five female members of the North Shore Rescue team who are all on full active duty.

“We all just do the same job. There’s no difference,” she says of their work with the team.

In search and rescue scenarios, training, teamwork and technique trump muscle mass.

“You simply have to be as trained as everyone else,” explains DeBoer. “Everybody does the job and you’re on the team because you can do the job, and it’s all for one and one for all, and that’s the way it has to be in life and death situations.”

DeBoer says she is humbled to be part of such a special organization.

Since joining North Shore Rescue about nine years ago, DeBoer has been involved in an estimated 400 search, rescue and recovery operations, including the rescue of Joy Zhang, a young woman with special needs who was missing for three days near Sasamat Lake in Port Moody in 2012.

DeBoer was the first to find Zhang, and recalls hearing the words “I’m here” as she called out to Zhang, who then popped her head up above some tall grass in which she was sitting. DeBoer says it was a great feeling to be able to return Zhang to her parents, and she never gave up hope she would find her alive.

It’s that hope that keeps DeBoer motivated through many volunteer hours with NSR, and it’s a hope that was first triggered more than 20 years ago.

Then living in her hometown of Rocky Mountain House in Alberta, DeBoer was involved in the search for a missing two-year-old boy who wandered away from a family campsite.

About 300 volunteers turned up to help, but there wasn’t a team in place at the time to organize the search.

“Convergent searching is very ineffective,” explains DeBoer.

Sadly, the toddler was found dead two days into the search.

“It really made an impact on me,” says DeBoer.

The community responded to that tragedy by forming a search and rescue team and it became one of the largest teams in Alberta.

Organized search and rescue teams help searches go faster and operate more effectively, notes DeBoer, who joined that team and got her initial training with them.

When she moved to the North Shore nine years ago Gerry Brewer, one of the founding members of NSR, encouraged her to apply for the team. She did, and started her training all over again, completing the team’s two-year member-in-training program and passing the final written and physical exams.

Connie DeBoer
Source: photo supplied

“The first time that you are able to actually lay your hands on someone and actually be part of the operation that saved their life, there’s really nothing else like that. There’s no other feeling like that,” she says of her reason for wanting to be a part of the team.

A mother of three grown children, and now with two granddaughters, DeBoer says she feels compelled to help when someone is in trouble in part because she can relate to the parents since she is one herself.

As a single mom, it wasn’t always easy being a part of search and rescue missions over the years. She got help from her parents, but sometimes the kids grumbled a bit.

Ultimately, however, they understood and appreciated what their mom was doing.

“My children always knew the difference that it could make,” says DeBoer.

When asked what keeps her committed to the cause, DeBoer is quick to answer that it’s a strong feeling that she is helping to make a difference between life and death for someone.

“When the pager goes off you always go,” she says. “Because you know the difference that it can make.”

Contact Rosalind Duane at rduane@nsnews.com.