A young James Mason sat studying with friends one weekend afternoon in 1971 at the College of the Ozarks when emergency alarms went off. Firefighters quickly came to the aid of a student who had fallen from a lookout point nearby.
The student hadn't fallen far and was fine, but the excitement caused Mason to give up his assembly line gig and become a firefighter, first as a volunteer and then full-time in Harrison, he said.
Want to Volunteer?
Contact the Benton County Search and Rescue at 479-271-1004 or email www.bcsar.us. Submit an application to http://www.bces.wa.…">Emergency Management Services.
Contact the Washington County Search and Rescue by email at [email protected]…. or [email protected]. Applications are available at http://wcsar.com/Jo…">wcsar.com/JoinUs.as…
Source: Staff Report
It was a similar call that put Mason on the path to where he is today. As he and his team tried to save someone who had fallen off a bluff, he was frustrated they "had very little equipment and no training at all on how to do that," he said.
With the drive to learn and the heart of a risktaker, Mason approached the National Parks Service near the Buffalo River and volunteered for the search and rescue team. He saw the effectiveness of the team: the more skilled members who understand the research and techniques on how to find missing persons, the faster and more likely they are to be rescued or bodies found.
Mason lives in Siloam Springs and is the team leader of the Benton County Search and Rescue, a volunteer emergency service organization founded in 1988 operating under the Benton County Emergency Management Agency. When a call comes in, Mason organizes his team whether he's at home, first on the scene or, sometimes, when he's out fighting wildfires in Alaska with a National Incident Management team.
"After I retired, I just couldn't quit," Mason said.
Not all of the Benton County Search and Rescue volunteers have such an extensive background in emergency services. Some are firefighters and medical professionals, but others have jobs in industry or real estate. They all have a drive to help their community, several members said.
Some people have Type A personalities, others Type B, but Mason said he and many on his team have a Type T personalities: thrill-seekers, or those who crave variety, novelty, intensity and risk, as coined and defined by Frank Farley, a professor of educational psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia.
"Not everybody, but they tend to be adrenaline junkies," Mason said. "Those are the types of people that want to be on a search and rescue team, they want to be a firefighter or to be a part of an emergency management team."
Becoming a Volunteer
The Benton County Search and Rescue team is seeking more volunteers. As of the middle of June, the team had 20 members, many of the them new.
"I've realized how much of a need there is and how much we lack in human resources," said Kate Gaffigan, who has been a member for two years. "It's 100 percent volunteer, but we need people that are highly motivated, highly interested and willing to see the benefit to the community and put their time and effort in."
Any Northwest Arkansas resident 18 or older can apply, regardless of previous knowledge and experience, said Robert McGowen, Benton County administrator of public safety.
"We are not trying to get to a certain number," McGowen said. "We will take as many volunteers as we can. The more volunteers we have, the better chance we will have enough individuals to respond at any given instance."
The Washington County Search and Rescue team has about 50 volunteers and also welcomes more.
"Sometimes we have plenty (of volunteers) and sometimes we have to rely on other counties to provide us with additional resource," said Tom Burroughs, Washington County team leader. Both counties' teams said they help and have received help from nearby counties during long and extensive searches.
Having more members who are residents of that area ensures a quicker response time, which can be critical in finding a missing person. "We welcome everybody's expertise, but the more people we can get on our team and get trained, the better we can serve our community," Gaffigan said.
Some people may not apply because they have full-time jobs, but many businesses allow employees off for a search and rescue emergency call, said Chris Benefield, Benton County Search and Rescue personnel officer and Centerton volunteer firefighter who works at the Sam's Club home office.
An applicant to either team, if accepted after a background check, serves as an apprentice training for a probationary period, usually about a year, Burroughs said.
Mason spoke to new recruits and team members in the map-plastered classroom that's the headquarters near the Benton County Sheriff's Office. Educational material detailed techniques for ground search, wilderness first aid, land navigation and outdoor survival skills. All participants must get certified with the National Association for Search and Rescue.
"We are the hikers on steroids," Gaffigan said.
Members can choose to train in additional technical and management disciplines, such as vertical, cave, advanced medical or instructor level courses. They are expected to participate in monthly classroom lectures and field exercises.
Chris Boyer, executive director of the national association, estimates about 2,000 teams exist in the nation. Depending on the state, teams can range from a large and well-organized part of emergency management to just a group of three or four friends that registered as a nonprofit, though Boyer said 20 or so members seems like the average.
After someone such as a missing person draws a community's attention, search and rescue teams can see a rush of applicants, Boyer said, but that doesn't always result in more trained members.
"It's a lifestyle change. It's not like volunteering a couple hours at the local community center," he said. "It's kind of like New Year's resolutions for some people. They get interested and then realize it's not what they thought, it takes more effort and other priorities in their life take over. You get high turnover."
Responding to the Call
With any search and rescue team the number of calls vary greatly depending on weather and other factors, Boyer said. Benton County's team went on 12 calls last year and four this year as of June 21, McGowen said.
One of the most recent calls was to help find Edward Holmes, a 50-year-old Bella Vista man, who went missing and was found dead in Beaver Lake. Search and rescue was called about an hour after Holmes' pickup was found, and four volunteers went to help.
Sgt. Shannon Jenkins, Benton County Sheriff's Office public information officer, said, "They are definitely a valuable resource to have, because we are limited with the amount of people that we have, so having a group that can assist us in looking for a missing person is absolutely vital."
The team doesn't get called to a search to find a criminal or if there is any foreseen risk to the volunteers, Mason said.
"The Sheriff's Office is the legal entity to look for missing people, or if it's within the city, the city's police department," Mason said. "We are there to support them."
The majority of the Benton and Washington county teams are composed of people who search by foot. A logistics unit acts as support.
The Washington County team has established canine and mounted units.
"The value of horses is that it enables us to cover a lot of ground fairly quickly," Burroughs said. "They are sitting much higher up, which gives them a better view, allowing them to find things in the grass that people walking may not see."
Two horse owners recently applied to the Benton County team after seeing a Facebook post requesting volunteers, Benefield said. They also have a canine unit in training with Benefield's dog Zoey, he said, and are experimenting with drones, which allow them to quickly search shallow water or open fields.
The number of calls for search and rescue groups have declined since the widespread use of cellphones, Gaffigan said.
"Generally, we were used to help find lost hikers or lost hunters in rural areas, but with the use of cellphones to call 911, we can find them very quickly or they pop up Google Earth and find their own way out," she said. Many of the calls they get today are for missing children or elderly people.
Often the outcome to a search isn't good, but whether the result is a rescue or finding a body, team members said they can bring closure to a family and everyone involved.
When it ends by saving someone's life, it stays with the team as a reminder of why they do this unpaid job.
"I remember this one time: There was a six-year-old autistic child. It was a hot August day. We immediately sent teams out and, within about 30 minutes to an hour, we found him at the water's edge with mud up to his waist," Benefield said. "He wouldn't have survived much longer based on the heat of the day. We truly saved that child's life. Now, EMTs and firefighters save lives all the time, but that's not often the case for folks like us."
NW News on 06/25/2017