View a slideshow of the Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue Team.
On the night of April 5, 2014, the residents of Isla Vista witnessed a party scene become a full-fledged riot. By 10 p.m., the informal spring break celebration known as Deltopia devolved into a violent mob of 15,000 people. Wedged in between the torrent of bricks, rocks, and bottles being thrown by out-of-control revelers and the tear gas lobbed by police clad in riot gear, were Nelson Trichler and his search and rescue comrades.
That night, Trichler and his teammates were trying to evacuate a girl who broke her foot scaling a fence while trying to escape the crowd. They came out of a backyard and into the street but couldn’t go much farther. They were greeted by chaos. In his 30-plus years on the Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue team, maneuvering through that melee was one of the most harrowing moments in Trichler’s volunteer career.
“We were trying to get this girl out and they were lobbing tear gas right and left and the mob was going crazy,” he recalled. “We opened the gate, and we saw the crowd going one way, then tear gas falling, and then the deputies were falling. We were like, let’s just stay here for awhile.”
The team was there to help medical responders transport the injured to nearby hospitals. Ambulances couldn’t access the roads due to the thickness of the crowds. After all was said and done, 44 people were transported to the hospital that night and more than 100 were arrested.
Situations like the Deltopia riot aren’t typical for search and rescue. When they aren’t evacuating injured bystanders from riots, they’re snatching up hikers lost in the remote mountains of Los Padres National Forest or scooping up swimmers stuck in raging ocean waters. But then again, there is no typical scenario for the men and women of the county’s all-volunteer search and rescue team, which is one of the most highly trained in the state.
No typical calls
Trichler said that although there’s no telling what could happen on any call, most of what his team receives are calls for stranded hikers. According to Trichler, that scenario could happen like this: It’s 7:30 p.m., and a hiker is stranded near a cliff in Cathedral Peak, a jutting rock formation with trails that reach 3,333 feet in elevation. Lacking water, a flashlight, and a jacket, and armed with only a cell phone, the hiker calls for help. The incident commander at search and rescue (SAR) headquarters receives the page, and it’s blasted to all SAR pagers. Within 15 minutes (the ideal response time), several teams of three to four members are mobilized and searching for the lost hiker.
Searches are a bit trickier than rescues. Searches require more people than rescues, said team member Charles “Chuck” Gelinas. But not everyone on the team can respond to a call for help, and the team needs to be efficient with its resources.
“When you are looking for someone, you cannot just send the whole world looking,” Gelinas said.
Gelinas describes searches like puzzles, where the exact location of the person who’s lost has to be determined based on clues. Callers often do not know exactly where they are, and the team must figure it out through a process of deduction and painstaking search. A cell phone helps tremendously and can be used to triangulate a stranded person’s position almost to an exact location.
In the age of social media, pictures of landmarks or selfies are often used to help locate someone who is lost. Generally, searches are completed within four to six hours.
Most calls originate in the southern part of the county, according to team member Matt Logsdon. Other calls received by search and rescue include motorists going over cliffs or people trapped in raging brush fires. Often times, the local team is called to help SAR teams and emergency responders in other counties.
Simliar to how fire departments work, Trichler said that the SAR team does mutual aid (assisting other teams during calls). With this ability, they are able to conduct operations in any weather condition anywhere in the state.
Santa Barbara County’s SAR team was called to help with rescue operations alongside the Ventura County Search and Rescue team during the La Conchita landslides along the coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in 2005. A two-week rain period in early January of that year caused up to 200,000 cubic meters of the hillside to sink below into the town of La Conchita, engulfing the nearby community. The landslide destroyed 13 houses, damaged 23 more, and killed 10 people.
Balancing act
The team is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Team members come from all walks of life. Trichler runs a financial planning business in Santa Barbara. Gelinas, who hails from Montreal, is an engineer and a dive master. Originally from Orange County, Logsdon is a commercial real estate broker.
Being a SAR member is obviously a heavy commitment for anyone who serves. All of them have second jobs, and some have families. The job occasionally interferes with their personal and professional lives. It takes time away from families. Employers sometimes become mindful of the obligation their SAR employees have to the team. For Gelinas, it’s about teamwork and time management.
“You just got to be careful,” Gelinas said. “You got to respond, but you want to use judgment. We try to respond, as much as you can, but you don’t want to get yourself fired. We’re a team here.”
Each member rotates as an incident commander, who tries to organize responders to calls in a period of five minutes. At least one person serves in this role every day. And then there is a quartermaster, who maintains the team’s fleet of vehicles, which includes several four-wheel drive trucks, vans, all-terrain vehicles, and even a Humvee.
Luckily for the team, most of the calls do not interfere with their work lives, but being a member does drastically cut into their free time. Calls that come in during the morning or their work schedules are rare. According to Trichler, most of the search and rescue calls are made between the hours of 5 p.m. and 6 a.m., usually on weekends. It’s one reason why the team is making a recruitment push right now, he said.
“There are people who become very much into it, but then they have to take a step back and take care of other things in order to have a longer life on the team,” Trichler said. “We try to recognize that and be very fluid with that arrangement.”
Of course, it’s not paid work. Although it offers no compensation, the camaraderie between members can only be matched by the closeness of deployed military units. And, of course, there is the satisfaction of a job well done.
And while no one on the team gets paid, money is still needed to maintain the fleet and to frequently pay for new equipment when old equipment is no longer usable. Much of the money the team receives comes from the public through fundraising drives and some tax dollars.
Intense training
According to Gelinas, 2014 was a slow year, with the team responding to around 120 calls. That’s one call every three days. Because of the allure Santa Barbara County’s outback has to hikers, bikers, and surfers, there never seems to be a shortage of people who find themselves in a bind. And there probably won’t be in the future.
To prepare for that, the county’s SAR team needs more members. Ideally, the team wants at least 40 to 45 people or more on the team. Currently, only 28 people comprise the team, with 24 members qualified to respond to calls, and seven new recruits are going through the SAR academy.
Becoming a team member is not a quick process. It takes at least a year, but in reality it could take up to a year and a half, Logsdon, who’s in charge of recruitement, said.
A candidate must first attend a recruitment meeting, which is essentially a meet-and-greet where they learn about the team. Like any typical job, an application must be submitted, which is followed by an interview with current members. If they decide to move forward, the sheriff’s department conducts an intense background check that can take up to four months to complete. Every aspect of the candidate’s life is examined. One reason the check is so thorough is to make sure a candidate can be trustworthy and is of good moral character, because the team falls under the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
Once an applicant passes the background check, they become a probationary member who awaits a spot in the next academy class. One or two classes are held each year, depending on how many candidates enter the pipeline. The academy is held at the SAR headquarters on South San Antonio Road in Goleta, and its duration is anywhere from three to six months.
The attrition, or dropout rate, exceeds 50 percent or more. Gelinas said he started his class with 14 other people, but ended with seven. Now, only four people from his class remain on the team.
Why is the dropout rate so high? As Logsdon explains, it’s not so much physically demanding as it is a personal commitment. One of the main things he looks for in a recruit is if he or she plans on sticking around for five years or more.
“We really try to emphasize the time commitment,” Logsdon said. “It’s basically a second job.”
Many applicants fail to meet the background check, some wash out of the academy, or many simply realize the balancing act the voluntary job requires. Gelinas said it’s a matter of time management.
Those who make the cut—provided they passed the tests, acquired their gear, and have received the blessings of the instructors—are considered trainees, given a pager, and are eligible to respond to calls.
Each member is highly trained. Certification in CPR is a must. An emergency medical technician certification is also highly desired. Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue is a member of the Mountain Rescue Association, which trains search and rescue teams in mountain climbing, swift water, and helicopter rescue techniques. The team is one of the few in the state qualified for responding to downed planes, according to Gelinas. Full-fledged team members are given the authority to collect evidence at crime scenes when recovering bodies.
Current members undergo training several times per month and are required to renew their certifications every year.
“We train so hard to minimize the danger aspect of the job,” Trichler said.
Dangerous but motivating
While the team’s purpose is to save lives, occasionally members find themselves in need of saving. Two of the team’s members were lost during the La Cumbre Plaza floods in Santa Barbara in the late 1960s while attempting to rescue a boy who, unbeknownst to the rescuers, had already perished.
Nothing like that has occurred recently, but the danger is a constant. Injuries can occur. Sometimes SAR members end up with broken feet, arms, or fingers.
Occasionally, what can only be described as “Oh shit!” moments occur. The Isla Vista riot is one example. So is trying to access lost hikers in the dark on unstable terrain.
Trichler elaborated a little more: “There are times when you come in, and the helicopter can’t land, and you’re hanging from the skid 8 or 10 feet above the ground, and they drop off your pack and they say ‘go for it.’ If you’ve been on the team long enough, you will have those occurrences.”
Fire rescues are extremely dangerous, too. The dynamics of the shifting wind keep rescuers on edge.
One aspect that cannot be overlooked is the reality of dead bodies. It’s the grim part of the job that no one likes. Not every rescue attempt is successful, and people can be lost. Looking for the deceased is not something that is forced upon team members, Gelinas said, but he also mentioned that it’s important to bring closure to the family members.
With all of the danger, time out of their personal lives, and no pay, the real question is why do they do it?
“The short answer is we’re crazy,” said Rick Stein, who trains canines for the team.
While this might be true, the real reason why some people do it—at least for Trichler, Logsden, and Gelinas and perhaps the rest of the team, too—is to give back to their community. The selection process will test the mettle of all who undertake such an endeavor. By doing so, members find out much about what they are made of, as well as what comprises a real team.
“When the pager goes off, I know I can make a positive impact in someone’s life,” Stein said.
And then there’s the adrenaline rush, which can’t be ignored. “It’s like one of those things where you’re living on the edge and then you come back down and you’re like, ‘Let’s do that again!’” Gelinas said.
Contact Staff Writer David Minsky at dminsky@santamariasun.com.
Volunteer rescuers
The Santa Barbara County Search and Rescue Team is an all-volunteer force that conducts operations throughout the more than 2,700 square miles of land in the county, most of it remote. The team is one of the most highly trained in the state. Using a combination fleet of 4-by-4 vehicles, radio communications, rescue devices, teamwork, and plain old gusto, they are the only team of first responders in the county who are able to provide medical help to those injured or stranded in the back country. The team relies completely on the hard work of men and women who are on it, donating their free time to make sure that you can spend more of yours alive.
PHOTOS BY KAORI FUNAHASHI. © 2015 NTMG
This article appears in Jan 8-15, 2015.