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Rescuers brace for busy season in parks

First responders brush up on technical rescue skills as crowds pack trails and swimming holes

From the Lynn Canyon suspension bridge, the sound of Lynn Creek roars underneath.

Two Canadian Armed Forces search and rescue technicians dangle from a rope 40 metres below the bridge. They’ve joined District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services members for a joint training exercise to see what the two very busy rescue teams can learn from each other.

It’s in preparation for what assistant fire chief Brian Hutchinson fears is going to be a busy summer of technical rescues.

As the warm weather has finally arrived in the Lower Mainland, snowmelt has the water rushing particularly hard and particularly cold. The heat also sends people to the creek looking to cool off.

“In the past 24 years, there have been 30 deaths in the canyon, which is significant when you think that it’s a recreational area and people are losing their lives in this environment,” he said.

So far, firefighters from the district and the North Vancouver City Fire Department have conducted about 20 technical rescues this year, though thankfully, none in Lynn Creek.

In 2016, there were 88 rescues across the district with the Grouse Grind, Quarry Rock and Lynn Canyon as the hot spots.

Rescuers brace for busy season in parks _1
Search and rescue specialists from Canadian Forces and District of North Vancouver engage in a joint training exercise. photo Kevin Hill, North Shore News

“We’ve spent the past month continuously preparing all our members. We do annual refresher training and this month has been extremely heavy, daily-basis, multiple training situations going on, and we’ve run all of our members through a four-day refresher program that incorporates both the technical rescue as well as some components of swift-water rescue as well,” Hutchinson said. “We’re putting hundreds of hours per year into these disciplines.”

But if it were up to Hutchinson, all of it would be for naught.

“The best case scenario is we don’t have to come here this summer,” he said, although that isn’t realistic, he acknowledges.

Since the training exercise on May 26, DNV fire has conducted two technical rescues. Over the past weekend, members stretchered a 12-year-old off of Quarry Rock after he slipped and hit his head. And on Monday, the team was deployed to the Capilano River where a man in his 20s jumped in and found himself unprepared for the rushing water.

For those who run into trouble in the canyon, possibly with a broken bone or head injury, there’s going to be a wait.

“Our response times are usually in the four-minute range or under. Our guys could probably be rigged up and down to the canyon bottom within about 15 to 20 minutes,” Hutchinson said.

But getting to the bottom of the canyon is just one part. Rescuers may have to conduct a swift-water rescue as well, depending on where the subject is. That delay proved fatal for Cole Marsh, the 16-year-old Coquitlam teen who drowned in Lynn Creek last March.

Injured following a cliff jump, he clung to the rocks while rescuers made their way to him over the turbulent water. But his strength ran out and he slipped into the rapids, getting caught in an underwater whirlpool he could not surface from. It took searchers three weeks to recover his body.

The district has found park use has exploded in recent years, particularly as posts on social media networks like Facebook and Instagram show the idyllic beauty of places like Lynn Canyon and Quarry Rock, but none of the risks associated with them.

North Shore Rescue has also noticed the trend and put out a request to bloggers and social media “influencers” to start including basic safety information and risks with their otherwise superficial posts.

“It may simply be a social media post with a picture of a beautifully composed waterfall, a yoga posed individual in running shoes, and a comment about ‘finding yourself,’” wrote volunteer Curtis Jones in a recent missive. “In fact, in many cases they may be extremely misleading regarding the level of difficulty, danger, and the amount of preparation required.”

The district also adopted a new strategy last year, changing the signs posted on the fences from the austere warnings about potential death. Now they carry a more irreverent tone, featuring stick people and messages like “That was worth the spinal damage, said no one ever” and “I’m OK drowning today, said no one ever.”

District staff hope the message hits home with their target demographic – young people who are most likely to use social media and most likely to be injured in high-risk cliff jumping.

Because they were only installed last season, it’s too soon to say whether the strategy is having its intended effect on visitors, although the signs certainly are getting noticed.

“We did get some traction on social media. We did see people passing it around, which is encouraging. I think this season will tell,” said Mairi Welman, district spokeswoman.

Frustrated with the frequent sounds of sirens and hovering helicopters on summer days, residents often complain that the district doesn’t take a more punitive approach to those who hop the fence and put themselves (and rescuers) at risk. But the district isn’t under any illusion they can stop cliff jumping entirely, and heavy-handed enforcement isn’t coming anytime soon, Welman said.

“Would you ticket people? How do you catch them? Do we have park rangers chasing people through the forest? That’s going to be dangerous as well. Pragmatically, it’s not actually possible to ticket people. And you put up fences and people climb over them,” she said.

“What we can do is make it abundantly clear how dangerous it is, and if people choose to go ahead and jump, there isn’t much else we can do at that point except be ready to grab them when they get into trouble.”