Although the actual dates have become a little smudged in Olen Marshall’s memory, every other detail about his rescue and that of his grandson Dustin Campbell from the Buffalo National River in April 2011 remains vivid.
Marshall of Valley Springs and his grandson were kayaking late on a Sunday afternoon along the Buffalo National River from its headwaters at Dixon Ford whentheir kayaks capsized, and they found themselves on opposite banks of the rapidlyrising river.
Marshall, then 67, and his grandson, then a high school junior, began walking toward their planned takeout point 10 miles away. As darkness fell, the two lost contact as each made his way through the wilderness.
When they had not returned home by dark, Marshall’s wife called authorities and reported the two missing.
It rained throughout the night.
By midmorning the next day - April 25, 2011 - Chad Wilt, a registered emergency medical technician and highangle rescue expert with the Newton County Search and Rescue team, spotted Marshall.
Wilt was part of a 50-member team that began scouring the rugged terrain for the two at 7:30 that morning. He was searching the Dug Hollow area. “The whole mountainsidewas a waterfall,” Wilt said. “I saw the water beneath the Boxley Bridge rise 2 feet in about 30 minutes.”
It took another 24 hours for the search team, which grew overnight to about 150 members, to find Campbell. Campbell had sought higher ground above Whittaker Creek. In all, his ordeal lasted 36 hours.
Two years later, sitting in the Downtown Coffee House in Harrison with Wilt and Glenn Wheeler, the rescue team’s incident commander, Marshall can see the humor in the experience.
“Before we began, I prayed that Dustin would have a memorable experience,” Marshall said. “So be careful what you ask for.”
Wheeler said there’s a strong emotional payoff at the end of such rescues.
“Like with the reunion between Dustin and his family. If you don’t tear up, you’ve got bigger issues,” Wheeler said.
The rescue was a high-profile success story that pulled in volunteers from many communities. Participants’ cars had lined the highway for more about a mile leading to the search team’s command center at the Boxley Baptist Church.
The rescue was one of dozens by the Newton County team over the past few years.
The team as it exists today was started by Sheriff Keith Slape, who started piecing the team together in 2007 after taking office that January.
Slape said he began by recruiting 10-20 people, most of whom were volunteer firefighters, and he began training them through the National Search and Rescue Course, which teaches basic trackingand about different kinds of searches.
Also involved is George Stowe-Rains, a county ranger with the Arkansas Forestry Commission since 2001, who teaches search theory and about how to manage searches. “I get more into theory on how a lost person is going to behave,” he said. “I get into what we think they’re going to do.”
Stowe-Rains said managing the large number of volunteers who sometimes turn out to assist in an emergency is crucial to a successful search.
“You have to be able to manage those resources and communicate to them [searchers] why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Stowe-Rains said. “If you don’t do that, you can have a real mutiny on your hands.”
Although the Newton County Search and Rescue team falls under the authority of the sheriff’s office, it isstaffed mostly by volunteers, some of whom are local and some of whom are from outside the area. On the call-out list that Slape and Wheeler use when organizing a search are the names of firefighters, law enforcement officers and Park Service rangers.
Kevin Moses, National Park Service ranger for the Middle Buffalo District of the Buffalo National River and a search-and-rescue coordinator for the Buffalo National River Search and Rescue team, said large and small government agencies, in addition to search-and-rescue teams, are increasingly pooling resources and employing a chain-of-command model called the Incident Command System.
That system helps in organizing the responses to emergencies of all types, especially when members of several organizations are working together, which is common in wilderness search-and-rescue operations.
Because of its natural beauty and vast areas of public land, which attract visitors of every stripe, search-and-rescue crews in Newton County are historically busier than such teams in other parts of the state. More than 1.1 million people visited the Buffalo National River area in 2012, its public information officer Cavin Clark said.
Newton County consists of 602 square miles, “and 67 percent of it is public land,” Wheeler said. “It’s one of the most beautiful places in the country. But that beauty is a rugged beauty, and it contributes to a lot of [visitor] disorientation and injuries.”
When a search is required, team members like Wheeler initially do an assessment of the situation, and then begin to activate the most-trainedmembers of the rescue team. Team leaders assign tasks and assemble smaller teams, tailoring them to the unique situation. Teams may include canoe units, horse teams or helicopters, for example.
The teams then begin searching and reporting back to the command center, a process that helps slowly narrow the search area. And what starts out as a search can quickly become a delicate rescue operation.
Such was the case with Rogers nature photographer Ed Cooley in 2009.
It took about seven hours for rescuers to find Cooley, who had fallen 30 feet from a bluff in the Richland Creek area, and more than 11 hours to carry him to safety. He had been pinned between a tree and a log, had a broken leg and pelvis, and hypothermia. Emergency medical technicians, including Wheeler, stabilized him and carried him on a backboard to a Newton County emergency vehicle.
The Newton County Search and Rescue’s budget, about $2,000 a year, is funded by fines assessed by the county Department of Fish and Game, Slape said. The rescue team also receives donations of cash and groceries, he said. Spending is prioritized, with rescues first, then equipment and finally training.
In the interest of securing funding, some rescue units are joining forces to become eligible for some federal grants.
On Monday, Newton County Search and Rescue members are to meet with members of the Madison County Community Emergency Response Team and Mennonite Disaster Services from Carroll County for the first training session of Tri-County Search and Rescue. The tri-county organization is intended to serve all three counties. The meeting is set for 7 p.m. in the Carroll Electric building in Jasper.
Last October, Lori Mc-Connell, coordinator for the Madison County Department of Emergency Management, applied for a “Community Resilience Initiative Grant,” a one-time grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that could provide up to $35,000 for training and equipment. That grant has not been awarded yet.
The teams in the state’s northwest are hoping that joining forces will increase their chances of getting that grant or grants like it.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 11 on 01/20/2013