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Searching for Cathy

Late September evening. Nights start taking over earlier, and skies, fortified by mercury clouds, turn pitch black by 8 p.m. The rain has settled in and now wraps everything it can reach with its sticky cold nudes.

Late September evening. Nights start taking over earlier, and skies, fortified by mercury clouds, turn pitch black by 8 p.m.

The rain has settled in and now wraps everything it can reach with its sticky cold nudes. Chilling Prairie wind picks up fallen leaves, shuffles them around and makes them run down the roads in the mystical fall dance, breaking the evening quietness. 

Every little detail adds on making for a picture of a usual fall night in the Estevan area. Everything is in place but the 12 people, quietly walking in somewhat of a line. They are geared up with compasses, GPSs, backpacks and flashlights, dissecting the night blanket.

They are walking through the field side by side seven-eight feet away from each other. Flashlights slowly glide up, down and all around. Every move is slow but sharp.

There is one person ahead and one behind, trying to keep a straight line. All of a sudden a loud voice makes the line stop.

“Command, this is team Alpha. Do you copy? Over”

“Go ahead team Alpha,” responds the person leading the line.

“Command. Found a piece of evidence. It’s a plantain chip. Over,” continues the first voice.

“Team Alpha, it is positive evidence. Go ahead, make a note, mark the location and pick it up. Report when you are done.”

“Roger that, over.”

Quietness with some whispering around the evidence location.

“Command, this is team Alpha. The evidence is registered and picked up. Over.”

“Team Alpha, continue search. Over.”

The other voice breaks the cold night air. This time it’s coming from behind the line.

“Team Alpha, forward.”

And 12 people again start slowly making their way through the area. They are zigzagging, sometimes turning around and shining the lights on trees, light poles and other obstacles around.

“Command, team Alpha. Another plantain chip. Over.”

This time it’s somebody else not far from the first finder.

More and more chips are found within the next 15 minutes. The joint level of excitement goes up, as the pieces of evidence suggest that the group is moving in the right direction.

These people are searching for Cathy. She is a three-year-old active girl, who’s already been lost before. She was last seen about five hours ago. It’s nighttime and it’s raining, so the group is trying to move forward searching the area as fast as it’s possible without missing anything.

“Command, team Alpha. Found a pink kid’s shoe. Over.”

“Positive clue. Register and pick it up,” respond comes.

The evidence suggests that the kid was here. But it also means that now she doesn’t have at least one of her shoes on, and might get colder even faster.

The evidence is registered and the group continues to move forward. There are hardly any conversations. All eyes are focused on the surroundings.

“Left side, slow down, right side, catch up,” the voice from behind the line cuts the space in an attempt to make the line move as one body, one mechanism calibrated to see the “bread crumbs” left by the little lost girl.

Everyone knows that important to keep distance and stay anchored to one line, so every piece of the area gets searched.  But in the dark, when landmarks become hard to see, that task turns much more difficult. So the following team leader constantly has to remind searchers about spacing.  

The closer the team gets to the tree line, the more pieces of pink kid’s clothes they find. In the end, they are almost running, sensing that the subject, little Cathy, is really close and might need immediate help.

Finally, they see her. Cathy is lying under the tree. Most of the group stays far enough not to disturb the scene. The first aid assessment shows that Cathy is alive but unconscious and is probably experiencing moderate hypothermia. Within less than a minute two searchers make a hypothermia wrap to keep her warm while getting her out to the EMS pick up location.

One of the finders carefully lifts Cathy, a blond plastic doll, and as if she was a real child, he carries her out of the trees.

The search is over. It was successful. Now it’s time to debrief, review the operation and mark the supplies that need to be stocked or restocked, so the group is ready to go at any time. But for a few short minutes, everybody is just excited.

The first twelve southeast Saskatchewan volunteers completed the basic searcher training course last Sunday. I was one of them. The night search exercise was a part of the training.

We hope that we will only use the knowledge and skills we received in further training or when hiking. But it feels nice to know that there are some trained and dedicated people in the area that are ready to act if the real call comes.