It’s only the beginning of a new year, and already Central Okanagan Search and Rescue has responded to a pair of emergency calls.
“We’ve already had two callouts,” COSAR president Dan Schlosser told Global News.
“So yeah, if you were to extrapolate that to 52 weeks, we’re on our way to a busy year.”
COSAR is coming off a record year for the number of calls it responded to.
“2020 has been our busiest year so far,” said Schlosser.
While the organization is responding to more calls every year, the pandemic is playing a major role.
“People aren’t able to go abroad, so they’re just recreating locally,” Schlosser said.
That has resulted in a substantial increase in calls for help.
Normally, the organization responds to 55-60 callouts a year. Last year, however, it responded to 81.
“We typically do a lot of snowmobiles, backcountry skiers, hikers in the summertime, obviously,” Schlosser said. “We’re getting busier with the water stuff.”
COSAR is made up of 51 members, all volunteers, who volunteered more than 20,000 hours of their time in 2020.
According to COSAR, 4,342 hours were spent on incidents and 10,000 on training, with the remainder on maintenance, repair, and general administration.
“We’re not out here getting paid to do this and it’s not really a glory thing, although we do get the kudos and stuff like that and we appreciate that. But really you’re not thinking about that at 3 o’clock in the morning,” Schlosser said.
“What you are trying to figure out is where this guy is or if you’re going to get them home.”
Vernon Search and Rescue (VSAR) also experienced a busy year, responding to more than 50 emergency calls.
“We had everything from missing people or despondent people walking away from their homes and family looking for them to lots of injuries in the wilderness and urban wilderness, lots of snow calls right now,” said VSAR spokesperson Trevor Honigman.
While the organization always promotes playing it safe, Honigman said it’s always there for those who run into trouble, 24 hours a day, seven 365 days a year.
“I think our primary focus right now in educating the public is that Search and Rescue is free,” Honigman said. “We hear of a lot of calls that we could’ve got and didn’t get because people were holding back.
“So we actually think there could be more calls if people knew about what we did and how we did it as volunteers.”
But as the calls for help grow, so do the pleas from rescuers to always be prepared when heading out exploring.
That includes always telling someone where exactly you’re going, if those plans change and when you’re expected home.
“Basically, a trip plan in a nutshell is having a plan of where you’re going and letting somebody know so that would be a significant other or spouse or your roommate or your boss,” Schlosser said.
“Usually the person that’s going to be calling into 911.”
Click here for more information on how to safely plan outdoor excursions.