The search for Amy Fahlman, a 25-year-old Calgary woman who family said has been missing for nearly a week, has widened.
On Thursday, nearly 150 volunteers responded to calls on social media to help search an area in the Municipal District of Bighorn northwest of Waiparous Village.
“We’ve asked everyone with outdoors backcountry experience to come out and help,” Steven Fahlman, Amy’s brother, told Global news. “This is expert terrain and so we want people who really know what they’re doing and who have been on these trails before.”
The small army of volunteers came equipped with ATVs, dirt bikes, satellite communication, food and water to help bolster the search effort.
“Someone messaged us and they said ‘You want me to come out on my horse?’ And I said, ‘Sure, we’ll take all the help we can get,’” Steven, of Edmonton, said. “We had no idea what horses could do on trails like this.”
“All these tools and equipment, they help us get places faster and more efficient. And so hopefully we can cover more ground.”
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On Wednesday, the Calgary Police Service said they found Amy’s grey SUV and were searching the area using helicopters and on-the-ground grid searches.
Steven said the search and rescue professionals are directing the volunteer search effort.
“Day by day, we plan out where we think she can be and we look at the grid, and you see what search and rescue can handle because they got limited experts and they need to coordinate the volunteers,” Steven said.
Steven previously told Global News that he last talked with Amy on Sept. 29, when she said she was going to go for a scenic drive to the north and west of Calgary, a drive she’d done several times before.
The following day, Amy didn’t show up to meet up with friends whom she had plans with.
He said he appreciates the continued efforts from police to find his sister.
“They’re pulling out all the stops. They really want to find her and they really think she can be found.”
Steven has been joined by his brother David, and aunt and uncle from Saskatchewan, while he – a self-admitted novice in outdoor exploration – waits to hear any news from the search teams.
“We don’t know a lot of them and a lot of them don’t know Amy. And they’re just here because they would want someone to be here if they got lost or they have a loved one that they’re imagining got lost,” he said.
“The amount of good that’s in this world is so overwhelming sometimes.”
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