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Good
things can’t happen when the phone rings at The
phone jangled me into a half state. Half
awake – half somewhere else. “We have a call out”, JJ said. Fumbling for a pencil, I said, “Go ahead.” “We have a hunter, believed hurt, lost in the woods off milepost 282 on US# 101 just north of the Curry county line. Go about five miles up Four mile road. Deputies are on the scene and they want all available personal”. “Okay”, I said, “I’ll call the Radio Patrol, you call the groundpounders.” I quickly started down my callout sheet. Monday morning…long weekend…people had to work in the morning. My hopes weren’t very high. My first call woke up Ginger. I didn’t know anyone could sound sleepier than me. Since Ginger lived closest to the scene, I made her gatekeeper. “When you get to the location, drive up the dirt road about four miles, contact the Deputy, inform him we are on the way and return to the intersection at #101. Find a safe spot off the road and turn on your 4-way flashers. Monitor the Beaver Hill repeater. I’ll have the radio patrol use that ham frequency on the way down. And write down the tag numbers of any vehicles leaving the Four Mile road. “Gotcha”. She said. We
soon had four radio patrol and two groundpounders on their way to the
Shortly before I was the last one to arrive. JJ, Brian, Ginger and a deputy quickly formed a ground team. John drove them to a spot above where the hunter was last seen. The deputy fired off a couple of rounds. A rifle shot rang out in reply off in the distance. JJ took a compass reading to where everyone agreed the shot came from and led the team back to base camp. Mike was stationed on the site where the Deputy had fired his shots. The team piled into the back of John’s pickup and headed down into the valley in search of a road that would put them in line with the rifle shot and Mike’s lights. After a bit of looking, a logging road was located that fit the bill. Soon the ground team was sweeping through the area calling out the hunter’s name. JJ was the first to hear the hunter yelling back. He was unharmed and glad to see our team. Soon he was drinking a bottle of water and talking to his wife on our radios. It was a perfect search. All those months of training paid off. The Hams provided superb communications as well as transportation and site coverage. Brian called into base camp with flawless lat/long coordinates. Ginger wore two hats – groundpounder and gatekeeper. JJ again proved her prowess with a compass. The hunter’s wife remarked to me, “It would have been a much harder night on me if I hadn’t seen all you men and women in orange working through the night to find my husband. Thank you all!” Some of the team stopped for breakfast in Bandon. When we asked for the bill, we were told, “It has been taken care of.” It turns out the hunter’s wife had overheard us making plans to stop and eat on the way home and phoned the diner. A really nice way to end a good search.
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