Title: I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forrest Service, I have some stories to tell ā Continued, PART 3.
Author: searchandrescuewoods via reddit (u/searchandrescuewoods)
ā PART 3 ā
Well, once again, you guys have blown meĀ away with your staggering amount of responses to my stories! There's noĀ way I can respond to each of you individually, so I'm just going toĀ address some common things again, and then move on to the stories. I'mĀ going to write as many as I can think of, in addition to my friend'sĀ stories, and I will probably not update again until I get a chance toĀ answer some questions that I myself have for my superiors.
Alright, so the common questions I found you all had:
IĀ am not comfortable talking about where exactly I work, unfortunately.Ā In all reality some of the things I've mentioned here could get me in aĀ lot of trouble or fired, so it's best if I just don't discuss too much. IĀ will say that I'm in the United States, and in an area that isĀ comprised of a great deal of wilderness. We're talking hundreds of milesĀ of thick forest, with a mountain range and a few lakes.
ThereĀ is still a great amount of interest in the stairs, and luckily for youĀ guys my friend has a story that I think you'll all be very interestedĀ in. I'll go into that more at the end of this update. As for whether orĀ not I have ever thought of asking my superiors about them, I have, butĀ again, I don't want to risk my job. However, one of my former superiorsĀ no longer works as an SAR officer, and it's possible that he may beĀ willing to talk to me about it. I'll be speaking to him later in theĀ week, and I will let you all know what comes of that.
AsĀ far as advice on becoming an SAR officer goes, I think the best advice IĀ can give is to contact your local Forest Service office and see if theyĀ offer and training courses, or what the qualifications are. I've beenĀ doing this for years, and I started out as a volunteer helping on SARĀ operations. It's a great job, despite the occasional tragic situations,Ā and I wouldn't want to do anything else.
Alright, let's move on to the stories:
TheĀ first happened on a case that I went out on right after I got out ofĀ training, and was still pretty new to everything. Before I took thisĀ job, I was a volunteer, so I had a basic idea of what to expect, but onĀ those calls you're mostly dealing with finding lost people after vetsĀ have found signs of them. As an SAR officer, you go out for all kinds ofĀ cases, from animal bites to heart attacks. This case got called inĀ early in the morning, from a young couple who were up on one of theĀ trails that goes by the lake. The husband was completely hysterical, andĀ we couldn't really figure out what was going on. We could hear theĀ woman screaming in the background, and he was begging us to come upĀ there right away. When we get there, we see him holding his wife, andĀ shes got something in her arms. She's screaming these awful, almostĀ animal-like screams, and he's sobbing. He sees us and he screams at usĀ to help them, to please get an ambulance up there. Now obviously weĀ can't just drive an ambulance up the walking path, so we ask him if hisĀ wife needs help, or if she can walk on her own. He's still hysterical,Ā but he manages to tell us that it's not his wife that needs help. I goĀ over while one of the vets tries to calm him down, and I ask the wifeĀ what's going on. She's rocking, holding something, and just shrieking,Ā over and over. I crouch down and see that whatever she's holding, it'sĀ covering her with blood. That's when I notice the sling on her front andĀ my heart sinks. I ask her to tell me what's going on, and I sort of pryĀ her arms gently open so I can see what she's holding. It's her baby,Ā obviously dead. His head is caved in on one side, and he's covered inĀ scratches. Now, I've seen dead bodies before, but something about thisĀ whole situation hits me hard. I have to take a second to compose myself,Ā and I get up and go get one of the other vets, who's standing by. IĀ tell him that it's a dead kid, and he sort of pats my shoulder and tellsĀ me he'll deal with it. It took us over an hour to get this woman to letĀ us see her kid. Every time we try to take him from her, she flips outĀ and tells us we can't have him, that he'll be okay if we just leave herĀ alone and let her help him. But eventually, one of the vets manages toĀ calm her down, and she gives us the body. We took it back to the medĀ area, but when the EMTs showed up, they told us that there was never anyĀ hope of saving the kid. He'd died instantly from the trauma to hisĀ head. I was good buddies with one of the nurses who met them at theĀ hospital, and she told me later what had happened. Turns out the coupleĀ had been walking with the baby in the sling, and they stopped becauseĀ the kid was fussing. The dad takes the kid and is holding him, lookingĀ out over this little gully by the path. The mom comes to stand next toĀ him, but she ends up stepping on a loose patch of soil, and she trips.Ā She falls into the dad, who drops the kid, who ends up falling aboutĀ twenty feet down this little gully onto the rocks at the bottom. The dadĀ climbed down and recovered the kid, but he'd fallen right on his head,Ā and was dead by the time he got there. The baby was only about fifteenĀ months old. It was a total freak accident, a series of events thatĀ coalesced into the worst possible outcome. Probably one of the moreĀ awful calls I've been on.
IĀ haven't seen a lot of animal bites in my time as an SAR officer, mostlyĀ because there aren't that many animals that come around the area. WhileĀ there are bears in the area, they tend to stay pretty far away fromĀ people, and sightings are highly unusual. Most of the animals you'll seeĀ are small ones, like coyotes, raccoons, or skunks. What we do seeĀ frequently, though, are moose. And let me tell you, moose are nastyĀ fuckers. They'll chase after anything for any reason, and god help youĀ if you get in between a female and its baby. One of the more amusingĀ calls was of a guy who'd gotten chased down by an absolutely massiveĀ male moose, and was stuck up a tree. Took us almost an hour to get himĀ down, and when he was finally on solid ground again, he looks at me andĀ says: 'God damn. Them fuckers is big up close.' I guess that's notĀ really a scary story, but we still laugh about that one.
IĀ honestly don't know how I'd forgotten this story, but it is, by far,Ā the scariest thing that's happened to me. I guess maybe I've tried soĀ long to forget about it that it just didn't come to mind right away. AsĀ someone who spends literally all of their time in the woods, you don'tĀ ever want to let yourself get scared of being alone, or out in theĀ middle of nowhere. That's why when you have experiences like this, youĀ tend to just forget about them and move on. This is, to date, the onlyĀ thing that's ever made me really seriously consider if this job is theĀ right one for me. I don't really like talking about it much, but I'll doĀ the best I can to remember it all. As I recall, this took place rightĀ at the end of spring. It was a typical lost-child call: a four-year-oldĀ girl had wandered away from her family's campsite, and had been missingĀ for about two hours. Her parents were completely despondent, and told usĀ what most parents do; my kid would never wander away, she's so goodĀ about staying close, she's never done anything like this before. WeĀ assure the parents that we'll do everything we can to find her, and weĀ spread out in a standard search formation. I was partnered with one ofĀ my good buddies, and we were sort of casually holding conversation whileĀ we hiked. I know it sounds callous, but you do sort of becomeĀ desensitized when you've done this long enough. It becomes the norm, andĀ I think to a certain extent you have to learn to desensitize yourselfĀ in order to work this job. We search for a good two hours, going wellĀ beyond where we think she'd be, and we come out of a small valley whenĀ something makes us both stop in unison. We freeze and look at eachĀ other, and there's almost a sensation like a plane depressurizing. MyĀ ears pop, and I have this odd sensation of having dropped about tenĀ feet. I start to ask my buddy if he felt that, but before I can, we hearĀ the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life. It's almost like aĀ freight train passing directly by us, but it's coming from everyĀ direction at once, including above and below us. He screams something toĀ me, but I can't hear him over this deafening roar. UnderstandablyĀ freaked out, we look all around us, trying to find the source of theĀ sound, but neither of us sees anything. Of course, my first thought is aĀ landslide, but we're not near any cliffs, and even if we were, it wouldĀ have hit us by now. The sound goes on and on, and we're trying to yellĀ to each other, but even standing close together we can't hear anythingĀ but this sound. Then, as suddenly as it starts, it stops, like someoneĀ threw a switch and cut it off. We stand there for a second, perfectlyĀ still, and slowly the normal sounds of the woods come back. He asks meĀ what the fuck just happened, but I just kind of shrug, and we standĀ there looking at each other for a minute. I get on the radio and ask ifĀ anyone else just heard the end of the fucking world, but no one elseĀ hears it, even though we're all within shouting distance of each other.Ā My buddy and I just sort of shrug it off and keep going. About an hourĀ later, we all check up on the radios, and no one's found the littleĀ girl. Most of the time, we won't search when it gets dark, but becauseĀ we don't have any kind of lead on her, a few of us decide to keep going,Ā including me and my buddy. We keep close together, and we're callingĀ out for her every couple of minutes. At this point, I'm hoping beyondĀ hope that we find her, because while I may not like kids, the idea ofĀ them being out all alone in the dark is awful. The woods can beĀ intimidating to kids in the daylight; at night, well, it's a wholeĀ different beast. But we're not seeing any signs of her, or getting anyĀ responses, and around midnight, we decide to turn around and head backĀ to the rendezvous point. We're about halfway back when my buddy stopsĀ and shines his light to the right of us, into a really thick deadfall,Ā or group of dead trees. I ask him if he's heard a response, but he justĀ tells me to be quiet a second and listen. I do, and in the distance, IĀ can hear what sounds like a kid crying. We both call the girl's name andĀ listen for any kind of response, but it's just this really faintĀ crying. We head in the direction of this deadfall and go around it,Ā calling her name over and over. As we get closer to the crying, I startĀ getting this weird feeling in my gut, and I tell my buddy that somethingĀ isn't right. He tells me he feels the same way, but we can't figure outĀ what it is. We stop where we are, and call the girl's name again. AndĀ at the same time, we both figure it out. The crying is on a loop. It'sĀ the same little hitching sob, then wail, then quiet hiccup, repeatedĀ over and over. It's exactly the same every time, and without sayingĀ another word, we both take off running. It's the only time I've everĀ lost my composure like that, but something about it was so incrediblyĀ wrong, and neither of us wanted to stay out there anymore. When we gotĀ back to the rendezvous, we asked if anyone else had heard anythingĀ strange, but no one else knew what we were talking about. I know itĀ sounds sort of anti-climactic, but that call fucked me up for a longĀ time. As for the little girl, we never found a trace of her. We keep anĀ eye out for her, and all the other people who we've never found, butĀ frankly I doubt we'll ever find anything.
OfĀ the missing persons calls I've gone out on, only a handful have everĀ resulted in a complete disappearance, meaning no trace of the person andĀ no body ever found. But sometimes, finding a body just leads to moreĀ questions than answers. Here are some of the bodies we've found thatĀ have become infamous in our team:
AĀ teenage boy who's remains were recovered almost a year after heĀ vanished. We found the top of his skull, two finger bones, and hisĀ camera almost forty miles from where he was last seen. The camera,Ā sadly, was destroyed.
The pelvis of an older man who had vanished a month earlier. That was all we found.
The lower jaw and right foot of a two-year-old boy on the highest peak of a ridge in the southern part of the park.
TheĀ body of a ten-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, almost twenty milesĀ from where she'd vanished. She had died of exposure three weeks afterĀ going missing, and all of her clothes were intact except for her shoesĀ and jacket. There were berries and cooked meat in her stomach when theyĀ did the autopsy. The coroner said it appeared as if someone had beenĀ taking care of her. There were no suspects ever identified.
TheĀ frozen body of a one-year-old baby, found a week after vanishing in theĀ hollow trunk of a tree ten miles from the area he was seen last. ThereĀ was fresh milk found in his stomach, but his tongue was gone.
AĀ single vertebra and right kneecap of a three-year-old girl, found inĀ the snow almost twenty miles from the campground her family had been atĀ the previous summer.
Now on toĀ Ā a couple of the stories my friend told me. I mentioned that you wereĀ all interested in the stairs, and you're in luck: he's had a closerĀ encounter with them. Though he doesn't have any explanation for them, heĀ does have a bit more experience with them than I do.
MyĀ buddy has been an SAR officer for about seven years, he started when heĀ was a junior in college, and he had a very similar experience when heĀ first encountered the stairs. His trainer told him almost the same thingĀ mine did, which was to never go near, touch, or ascend them. For theĀ first year, he did just that, but apparently his curiosity got theĀ better of him, and on one call he broke away from the line and went toĀ go check a set of them out. He said they were about ten miles from theĀ path where a teenage girl had vanished, and the dogs were following aĀ scent. He was on his own, lagging behind the main group, when he saw aĀ set of stairs off to his left. They looked like they were from a newĀ house, because the carpeting was pristine and white. He said that as heĀ got closer, he didn't feel any different, or hear any weird noises. HeĀ was expecting something to happen, like bleeding from his ears orĀ collapsing, but he got right up next to them and didn't feel anything.Ā The only thing, he said, that was odd was that there was absolutely noĀ debris on the steps. No dirt, leaves, dust, anything. And there didn'tĀ appear to be any signs of animal or insect activity in the immediateĀ area, which he found strange. It was less like things were avoidingĀ them, and more like they just happened to be in a relatively barren partĀ of the forest. He touched the stairs, and didn't feel anything exceptĀ that sort of sticky feeling you get from new carpet. Making sure hisĀ radio was on, he slowly climbed the stairs; he said it was terrifying,Ā because the way they'd been stigmatized, he wasn't really sure what wasĀ going to happen to him. He joked that half of him expected to beĀ teleported to some other dimension and the other half was watching for aĀ UFO to come swooping down. But he got to the top with little event, andĀ he stood there looking around. But, he said, the longer he stood on theĀ top step, the more he felt like he was doing something very, veryĀ wrong. He described it as the feeling you'd get if you were in a part ofĀ a government building you have no business being in. As if someone wasĀ going to come and arrest you, or shoot you in the back of the head, atĀ any second. He tried to brush it off, but the feeling got stronger andĀ stronger, and that's when he realized that he couldn't hear anythingĀ anymore. The sounds of the forest were gone, and he couldn't hear hisĀ own breathing. It was like some kind of weird, awful tinnitus, but moreĀ oppressive. He climbed back down and rejoined the search, and didn'tĀ mention what he'd done.
But, he said, the weirdest part came after.Ā His trainer was waiting back at the welcome center after the searchĀ ended for the day, and he cornered my buddy before he could leave. HeĀ said his trainer had this look of intense anger, and he asked what wasĀ wrong. 'You went up them, didn't you.' My buddy said it wasn't phrasedĀ as a question. He asked how his trainer knew. The trainer just shook hisĀ head. 'Because we didn't find her. The dogs lost her scent.' My buddyĀ asked what that had to do with anything. The trainer asked how long he'dĀ been on the stairs, and my buddy said no more than a minute. TheĀ trainer gave him this really awful, almost dead-eyed look, and told himĀ that if he ever went up another set of stairs again, he'd be fired.Ā Immediately. The trainer walked away, and I guess he's never answeredĀ any of the questions my buddy has asked him about it since.
MyĀ buddy has been involved in a lot of missing persons cases where there'sĀ never been a trace of them found. I mentioned David Paulides, and myĀ buddy said he can confirm that those stories are, for the most part,Ā accurate. He said that most of the time, if the person isn't found rightĀ away, they're either never found, or they're found weeks, months, orĀ years later, in places they can't possibly have gotten to. One story heĀ told me really stood out that involved a five-year-old boy with a severeĀ mental disability.
TheĀ little boy vanished from a picnic area in the late fall. In addition toĀ the mental disability, he was also physically handicapped, and hisĀ parents explained over and over that he simply could not have vanished.Ā It was impossible. Someone had to have taken him. My buddy said theyĀ searched for this kid for weeks, going miles out of the accepted range,Ā but it was like he'd never been there. The dogs couldn't pick up hisĀ scent anywhere, not even in the picnic area where he'd apparentlyĀ vanished from. Suspicion fell on the parents, but it was pretty clearĀ that they were devastated, and hadn't done anything sinister to theirĀ kid. The search was concluded about a month later, and my buddy saidĀ everyone had pretty much forgotten it by later in the winter. He was outĀ on a training op in the snow, on one of the higher peaks, when he cameĀ across something in the snow. He said he saw it from far away at first,Ā and when he got closer, he realized it was a shirt, frozen and stickingĀ part way out of the powder. He recognized it as belonging to the kid,Ā because it had a distinctive pattern. About twenty yards away, he foundĀ the kid's body, laying partially buried in the snow. My buddy said thereĀ was no way the kid had been dead for any more than a few days, evenĀ though he'd been missing for almost three months. The kid was curledĀ around something, and when my buddy brushed off the snow to see what itĀ was, he said he almost couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a bigĀ chunk of ice, that had been carved crudely to look sort of like aĀ person. The kid was holding it so tight that it had frostbitten hisĀ chest and hands, which my buddy could tell even with the decay that hadĀ taken place. He radioed the rest of the crew, and they took the body offĀ the mountain. Now, he recapped all of this for me, and to put itĀ simply, there was no way this kid could have both survived for almostĀ three months on his own, or have gotten to this peak. There was noĀ physical way this child could have walked almost fifty miles and endedĀ up on the top of a god
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