By Spencer Sterritt

Nanaimo Search and Rescue utilized twice as often in 2017

Aug 8, 2017 | 5:22 PM

NANAIMO — Thankfully members of Nanaimo Search and Rescue love being outside.

On Friday, Aug. 5, they were called out to help find a missing woman around Hammond Bay Rd., who was later found by RCMP that night.

It was the 32nd time SAR has been called out so far in 2017, which president Carly Trobridge told NanaimoNewsNOW is a drastic 54 per cent increase.

“We’ve had seven calls in the last two weeks alone,” she said. Whereas normally they average 2.5 calls a month, they’re currently dealing with 4.7 and their typically busy season from March to May is now from March to August.

Trobridge said the increase in calls is predominantly caused by Nanaimo RCMP utilizing them more.

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“Typically in the past we’ve been tasked with stuff like lost hikers or someone injures themselves…More and more recently the RCMP has been using us in urban searches, so somebody lost in the city.”

Already SAR has been used in six urban searches, with Trobridge unable to remember a single urban search last year.

Cst. Gary O’Brien with Nanaimo RCMP said SAR is increasingly becoming a valuable asset.

“They’re highly trained individuals who are constantly honing their skills,” he said. “We only have so many resources working and we have a city to police. SAR will drop what they’re doing, put 10, 20 if not more members for any situation in the field and deal with it.”

There’s currently 50 volunteer members of Nanaimo SAR with four auxiliary teammates.

Trobridge said being in such demand has certainly posed new challenges for the team, especially as their team numbers fluctuate during vacation season.

“We’re keeping spirits up,” she said. “It’s almost become a joke now, a ‘we’ll see you tomorrow’ sort of thing. This is what we trained for.”

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit