Sports - Quiet Year

Good, that is, for LASAR, our search and rescue team. And good for those who we might otherwise have had to go searching for. It has indeed been a quiet year.

The last big search we were involved in was over in Greenwich for the 12-year-old boy, Jaliek Rainwalker. He went missing Nov. 1 of last year. Our team, and in particular, our dog teams, have been asked repeatedly to search for Jaliek and to follow up on new clues and unfortunately, without any success.

Since then, we have had no major call outs until just recently. On Thursday, Oct. 16, we were requested by New York State Forest Rangers to assist in a search just outside the Village of Indian Lake for a 71-year-old man who had been missing since the previous Sunday. Still, as of the moment, there has been no sign of him anywhere, but the search goes on. I can’t get into any details at this time because it is still an active, in process search. However, if you log on to any of the news services, I’m sure you will find it with ease.

The differences between these two search efforts have been dramatic and have tested the skill levels of LASAR members. The Rainwalker search was conducted primarily in and around the town of Greenwich. The terrain was reasonably gentle although the briars were thick enough to rip our clothes off. Our dog teams were used extensively during the primary search effort and numerous times after. In addition, Karen Major, our K9 team leader, has taken a great deal of her own personal time to search areas in and around Greenwich simply because she cares and just could not accept the mystery of this young boy’s disappearance.

The Indian Lake search was a mountain search. Up hills and down….open hardwoods and spruce thickets dense enough to block out the sun….swamps and marshes with black muck that suck your boots right off your feet…..old fallen trees as slick as black ice….and yes, rain. Oh! What fun it is to search in the cold rain.

But, like the Rainwalker search, this one also presents us with a mystery. This time not about the subject of the search, but the area within which it took place…Indian Lake.

I love Indian Lake! If I stood a chance of talking my wife into living in this tiny little mountain village, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But, the area around the village has a way of gobbling up people like no other I’ve experienced.

Two and a half years ago, a man in his early 40’s went fishing in the Cedar River less than two miles from the center of the village. He didn’t come home and has never been seen since. A notorious litter bug, we search the area around where his truck was found and for days never found so much as a candy wrapper.

A month later, a man also in his 40’s, went fishing in the Moose River Plains area just outside of Indian Lake. He didn’t return from his trip when scheduled, so his family reported him missing and WHAM!, here we go again. His truck and tent and dining fly were all located exactly where they should have been, on the campsite he registered to use. And that was it! Thousands of man hours and millions of dollars in equipment went into the search, yet nothing was discovered until sometime over the winter, a hiker or hunter found a fishing pole thought to be his. So, we were called out again in the spring to search the area around where the pole was found and still nothing.

Now we have the latest effort. For over two weeks, professional and highly-trained volunteers have pounded the woods and again nothing. One of the Rangers described the area as “the Bermuda Triangle of the Adirondacks.” It is difficult for us to accept not being successful in these search efforts. For some of us, it’s difficult to understand and accept how someone can get lost in the first place, but it happens. Yet to totally disappear without a trace…without a foot print…without a cigarette butt…without a candy wrapper…without any sign of existence is tough for us to accept. A sense of failure hangs over our heads even though we have done all we could do…all that was asked of us. So, be careful out there.

See you outdoors! You can reach Dick at rtotino@nycap.rr.com.