This year, my team, Rocky Mountain Rescue, celebrated our 75th year providing SAR services to the Boulder County, Colorado community and beyond. We had a weekend of festivities, and past members from all over the country came by. It was a great time, and I must have looked at more than 5,000 photos putting presentations together, but I learned a lot about my team and the development of SAR in the USA. I also looked to the future of SAR.
Search and rescue in our country is community based and mostly volunteer. I have heard many people voice concern about the unsustainability of volunteer SAR work in the USA. I am not so sure our future is grim. Of course, I believe that local, county, state, and federal agencies need to recognize us as professional volunteers and the important service to our communities we provide, mostly for free. Financial support is certainly helpful (and welcome). But I am not sure the same service could ever be provided with only paid professionals. The MRA mandates no charge for rescue, for all the reasons we know. But does the public now expect something different? Are our EMS, medical laws, federal aviation industries, insurance companies, hospitals and other involved parties going to adjust their business models to accommodate thousands of potential new employees? Probably not any time soon. In Colorado we are working on some hybrid models, and legislation is helping pick up some of the slack. but the volunteers are still doing the heavy lifting.
Volunteers do what they do because they want to. Sure, I would love to make a living doing this and envy those that do. But having a team of 50+ on call 24/7/365 to go search in the middle of the night would be very expensive indeed. I admire our paid colleagues and am honored to work alongside them. They have much they can teach us, but we have much to offer them as well. There are no substitutes for the local knowledge and experience the MRA teams have to offer. As the demands on our time increase, we must work with our professional agencies in a collegial, non-competitive way. Our safety, the patient’s safety, and getting us all home in one piece have always been the goal. Let’s never lose sight of that. Be proud of being a volunteer. What greater gift to ourselves, and others is there? What a fine way to live one’s life.
Alison Sheets
