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Amanda Stephenson
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A Medicine Hat paramedic didn’t find
Steve Fossett, but he did gain a new appreciation for the role
adventure athletes can play in search and rescue operations.
Tyler LeBlanc is currently on his way back
to Medicine Hat after participating in a six-day search of the
Sierra Nevada mountains, along the border of California and Nevada.
The searchers were looking for the remains of Steve Fossett, a
millionaire U.S. adventurer who disappeared while flying last fall.
Perhaps most famous for his solo flight around the world in a
balloon, Fossett was declared dead in February after a number of
unsuccessful searches for him and his plane.
LeBlanc got involved with the latest
effort because his future father-in-law, Keith Szlater — a
member of Calgary’s Search and Rescue Association — had
signed on as the team’s base camp manager. The team
didn’t yet have anyone who could provide medical support, so
LeBlanc — who is also an avid rock-climber —
volunteered his paramedic skills.
“It was kind of right up my
alley,” says LeBlanc.
The idea of the search — which was
the brainchild of Calgary geologist Simon Donato — was to
bring together a number of elite adventure athletes who would have
the ability to push into far more rugged terrain than previous
search and rescue teams had covered.
“Search and rescue has a hard time
getting to certain areas,” LeBlanc says, explaining the
adventure athletes concentrated their search on areas with deep
canyons and high tree coverage, where a plane wreck could have been
missed by aerial surveillance.
LeBlanc’s job was to be there for
the searchers — who were covering 20-30 km of rugged terrain
each day in 30 degree weather — in case of a medical
emergency.
“Luckily they made it through pretty
much unscathed,” LeBlanc says. “I didn’t have to
do too much.”
While the team didn’t find Steve
Fossett, they did find other intriguing items like the door of what
appeared to be a very old airplane. The find only reinforced the
team’s belief that adventure athletes can find things other
search teams have missed.
“Hopefully, they’re on the
pioneering edge,” LeBlanc says of the team he worked with.
“And hopefully, adventure athletes will continue with search
and rescue.” |
