When you’re the “local rescue guru,” the news media always wants to know what you would have done differently when a search team finds someone too late to have saved them.
It was actually from news reports that I first heard of the Kim family’s disappearance on a road trip while they were traveling from San Francisco to Seattle.
Kati Kim and her two children were found alive in their snowbound car in the wilderness area of Josephine County, Oregon, on December 4. Just a day earlier, her husband James had set out alone and on foot to try to find help for them.
Their story of survival was both captivating and chilling, even as the hunt for James Kim went on. You couldn’t help but hope it would have a happy ending. The tragic conclusion to the story came on December 6, when James Kim’s lifeless body was found. The unfortunate and harsh reality was that despite all of the rescuers’ efforts, he had probably died never knowing that his family had been rescued.
When the Oregon State Sheriff’s Association review of the incident was issued on January 18, my phone started ringing with calls from the media seeking my opinion.
No surprises
When the first news crew arrived, they asked if I had seen the report. I replied honestly that I had not, so they gave me a copy to read. There weren’t any big surprises, and nothing I hadn’t read or seen before.
If anything, the report should remind all of us in the “business” that with the advent of the Internet what you do and say, even from a remote section of Oregon, can be broadcast around the world for everyone to read and evaluate.
It would have been real easy to jump on the bandwagon at the time and fall into the trap of pitting law again fire, volunteer against paid, or even urban against wilderness rescue folks. But maybe after you read what I have to say, we can all actually agree how similar we all are, and that there is plenty of room for improvement to go around.
The hardest lesson anyone ever has to deal with is the missed rescue. You tend to second guess yourself from that point forward, and in the end you have to find your own personal peace to keep going. The rescuer’s fuel is hope and optimism — if you can’t find either, it may be time to hang things up and do something else.
The line between hero and zero is pretty thin, and you can find yourself in unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory pretty fast if you’re not careful. Clearly that is what the news crews wanted, but I don’t play the blame game so well.
Instead, I told them it took guts to put out that report. Like any “hot wash” or critique, we all have things we would much rather the public not know, or see, when calls we were on may be perceived as not having gone well or, indeed, actually didn’t go well.
Three C’s
What I knew even before I read that report was that most rescues go wrong when you don’t pay attention to the “C’s.” Put simply, it’s all about Command, Control, Coordination, Communications, Capability, Capacity, and Compassion.
The real result when those things can’t, or don’t, come together is the “disaster within the disaster.” Most of the time it’s human driven, and almost always is based upon the breakdown of any, or all, aspects of all of the C’s.
Commanders need to be skilled and experienced, dedicated and selfless, but they are also human and as such are subject to making mistakes when tired, overwhelmed, directly impacted or trying to do it all themselves.
Control is something you work towards the entire event; it can be elusive based upon who you have to work with and outside forces such as the news media, vendors, family, and the public who want their own piece of it.
Coordination is probably one of the most important aspects of any event, especially if you bring in other agencies or entities. It requires training and practice, and often is elusive if you haven’t built a foundation before the event occurs.
Communications are usually behind most of the problems during any event. Some people just don’t share, while others don’t realize, or care, that it’s a two-way street. Add in hardware and software problems, and even in the information age you can find yourself in a hole.
Capability is all about your equipment and skill level. Funding is always a challenge, but in the end you practice how you play and need to play how you practice. Improvising, adapting and overcoming can only go so far if you can’t even afford to sustain what you have.
Capacity, or thinking outside the box. You need to know people who can help you do this because it is a key aspect of any unique event. I have only met a handful of people who not only could keep up with a dynamic rescue event, but also be 10–20 steps ahead of it.
Compassion for the victim, the family members, rescuers and even yourself is critical. Humility goes a long way in this business, and none of us can do it all, especially alone. Showing you care isn’t a weakness unless you make it one.
It would have been easy to have armchair quarterbacked what occurred by throwing stones, but rock throwing isn’t a habit of mine. Some days you succeed, and people live, and other days you don’t, and they can die.
While I’m sure that none of us believe that is good enough, it goes with the territory and we can only be honest with ourselves through constant evaluation and the elusive desire for improvement, and strive for perfection.