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EDITORIAL: Safe at last

As we write this editorial, volunteers from North Shore Rescue are recovering from another late night in the cold, fetching lost souls from a mountainside creek drainage.
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As we write this editorial, volunteers from North Shore Rescue are recovering from another late night in the cold, fetching lost souls from a mountainside creek drainage. With their 141st successful call-out, 2018 now has the dubious distinction of being the busiest year ever for the all-volunteer team.

North Shore Rescue’s leaders estimate the team’s members have put in 5,300 volunteer hours saving lives this year, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the time spent on training, equipment maintenance and administrative tasks.

Our two local Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue units were on the water 78 times this year and logged 2,183 total volunteer hours.

Fresh off the holiday season spent warm inside with loved ones, we cannot begin to express our thanks to all our life-saving volunteers for keeping so many families whole. Your dedication to saving neighbours and strangers alike – all on your own time – is a testament to your love for our community.

And when they aren’t charging into action in a helicopter or zodiac, training or educating the public, rescue teams also have to go beg for donations to get by.

For years, we’ve run stories that include safety messages from North Shore Rescue, warning readers how to not wind up at the bottom of a helicopter long-line. But as the mountains’ popularity continues to grow, thanks largely to social media, it’s clear we can’t reach everyone.

We’ve also run years of editorials insisting the province show up with sustainable funding that will lighten the volunteers’ workload.

Let 2019 be the year the province finally comes to the rescue.

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