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North Shore Rescue save six in one weekend

It was a weekend when North Shore Rescue’s emergency pager just wouldn’t shut up.
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It was a weekend when North Shore Rescue’s emergency pager just wouldn’t shut up.
North Shore Rescue’s volunteers were out on the trails assisting lost and injured hikers five times since Friday morning, including one massive search effort for what turned out to be a false alarm.

The team broke records for the number of rescues they were tasked with in 2015 and 2016 and this year is shaping up much the same, according to team leader Mike Danks.

“We’re right on par if not a little bit ahead of the last couple years,” he said. “The last couple of years have been a 30 per cent increase in calls so we’re certainly keeping busy, that’s for sure.”

The first call for help came at 5 a.m. on Friday morning when Lions Bay Search and Rescue needed assistance getting a father and daughter out of a steep gully north of the Lions. Lions Bay search and rescue members kept the two safe overnight but needed helicopter assistance from North Shore Rescue to evacuate them at first light.

Things started to pick up on Saturday afternoon when members of the rescue team were called for a lost hiker on Grouse Mountain. The man had done the Grouse Grind and gone looking for the grizzly enclosure but instead wound up walking down the Crown Creek drainage on the trail to Dam Mountain. He too had to be airlifted out, Danks said. Back at the SAR station, search managers gave him a good talking-to about the dangers of going into the woods ill-prepared.

On Sunday, North Shore Rescue volunteers helped a man back to the parking lot on the Dog Mountain trail after he slipped on some snow and hit his head, Danks said.
Soon after, they were again called back to Grouse Mountain, for another hiker lost in a gully not far from the one on Saturday’s call.

“Both of these guys got off trail and instead of stopping or backtracking, they just, for some reason, thought it would be wise to continue downhill thinking they would either find another trail or get out that way,” he said. “On the North Shore mountains, that just does not work.”

But that lost soul would have to wait some time for a lift out of the bush. Within 10 minutes, the team was again called out, this time for a medical emergency about six kilometres up the Howe Sound Crest Trail, near Deeks Lake in Lions Bay. A hiker went into anaphylactic shock following a bee sting.

“I believe he was starting to break out into hives and they were concerned about his airway. For us, that’s a medical emergency any time we’re dealing with a potential airway issue,” Danks said.

North Shore Rescue members administered an EpiPen and shuttled in a Lions Bay paramedic before airlifting the man back to the nearest rescue station.

With that mission wrapped, the chopper crew refueled and came back to the hiker on Grouse.

The team’s volunteers were tired, but there was one last plea for help to deal with just before 10:30 p.m. when they received a call from someone saying their friend had hurt his knee on the Grind and likely wouldn’t be able to get out on his own.

“And then the call dropped,” Danks said.

North Shore Rescue sent a member up the Skyride calling out for anyone listening below to respond. Rescue teams also did the BCMC trail and Grouse Grind on foot but they too had no luck.

As the night search went on, the RCMP kept up efforts to track the phone using cell towers. Eventually, around 2:30 a.m., they found activity suggesting the owner of the phone was headed towards UBC.

Danks expressed frustration at the way that call capped an already extremely busy weekend.

“Between North Shore Rescue, the RCMP, Metro Vancouver and Grouse Mountain, a huge amount of manpower and resources were used to look for someone who was already out on their own,” he said.

Danks said he’d like to share that message with whoever made the call but the phone still goes straight to voicemail and police have been unable to track down a residential address associated with the phone.