By Barry Heigher & Robert Thomason
The authors of this article are members of Humboldt County Search and Rescue, but do not in any way speak as official spokespersons for the unit or for the county sheriff. These words are our own as private citizens. Some people seem to have misconceptions of the local Humboldt County Search and Rescue unit activities. Hopefully, this article can clear some issues.
The Search and Rescue (SAR) unit fulfills a Nevada Statute that requires each county sheriff to establish a SAR unit in his/her county. The SAR unit consists mostly of volunteers who dedicate their time, money and equipment to the benefit of anyone in Humboldt County or the surrounding area that needs assistance because they are lost or missing in one of our 10,000 square miles of mostly back country. In addition to SAR efforts to find the lost or missing, we have also assisted the sheriff's department with marijuana grow site eradications, assisted in the recovery of animals left behind in a snowstorm, with crime scene evidence searches, body recovery, fire storm evacuation of residential areas, looked for downed aircraft, and as many of you may know we are still involved with the search for the elderly gentleman, Mr. Carnes, who went missing somewhere on his return journey from Ohio back to Reno. Through their participation, the members of the SAR unit have saved county taxpayers multiple dollars by donating their personal time and funds. Our SAR unit has also assisted neighboring counties when they have requested help.
We have at least two large scale overnight training exercises per year to refine our skills. This is in addition to the mini-training sessions we often conduct at our monthly meetings and at numerous other times during the year.
The 65 volunteer members of the unit accomplish the tasks listed above using their own free time, their own equipment and their own funds to support themselves while on a search or training mission. Each person is required to be self-sufficient for 48 hours on any call-out. Our budget from the county is minimal and is rapidly consumed on unit equipment purchases and maintenance upkeep. People that we have assisted have on occasion donated funds to the unit. This money is also used for items we need as a unit, never for personal gain. We have provided security at several large local events and the sponsors have donated funds to the unit, again not to individual members. While the donations are appreciated, operating an organization of this size without the dedication and support of individual members would be impossible.
Through grants, donations and loaned excess county equipment, we have two highway vehicles dedicated for our use and two off-road vehicles plus two motorcycles that we use. The Special Programs Director, a commissioned deputy who is hired part time, uses his patrol vehicle for Search and Rescue work as well as other duties he is assigned. The vehicles are used during training exercises, on actual missions and for a few other official tasks. Not for personal use. You may have seen private vehicles around town that display Search and Rescue decals. These are equipped and fueled at the cost of their owners for use on searches. Additionally, we are very fortunate to have two team members that fly their privately owned aircraft (at their expense) when we need them on a search. Two other team members are certified dog handlers and have had their dogs certified for tracking. The SAR Unit has a mounted team and our Special Program Director conducts annual training for them which has also become popular with and attended by other county SAR and police department personnel.
So as you can see, Humboldt County has a very active SAR Unit serving the citizens of the county. Our unit consists of people who are your neighbors that have a desire to give something positive back to their community, not for personal gain or recognition, but admittedly for a lot of personal satisfaction.
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