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Jan Whitlow comforts her paint quarterhorse Apache Blue during a training exercise for the Santa Clara County Allied Agencies Search and Rescue team.
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The Searchers
When someone's lost in rough terrain, Santa Clara County's team of volunteers saddles up
By Suzanne Cristallo
Photographs by Paul Myers
Real people live just off the freeway. Far from the rage of frustrated commuters, but close to where their hearts lead them, they gather to help others. Kris Black is one of them. "I love people. I love animals. I love life," she says simply. She is a volunteer who is willing to be hauled out of bed in the middle of the night to search for a lost child. A mom who says she's a little overweight but who is game to trek along steep canyons and through stickers in hopes of finding a shred of evidence that might help solve a brutal crime.
Black is a Los Gatan who has been training all year so she and her horse can be part of the county's mounted search and rescue team. While she has spent more than 200 hours in training for her volunteer role, her horse is just now being trained for his part.
Members must first be ground trained before using their horses. "If we can't find a person on foot, we certainly won't know how to find them on horseback," Black says.
Last weekend, the mounted unit met in a training session with California Shock Trauma Air Rescue on a ranch in Gilroy. The air rescue team, part of a nonprofit community service devoted to air lifting medical emergency cases, agreed to take part in the "desensitizing" of the search and rescue horses as part of their own training.
Lead pilot Markus Lavenson said the big Eurocopter 105 used in the session "creates a pretty tame environment." The Gilroy-based craft is a familiar sight near Lexington Resevoir where it makes occasional landings at the Alma fire station and at Good Samaritan Hospital. It's also used in training sessions with the Saratoga Fire District.
"We land, cool down and turn off. The horses are way back. There is no dust or draft, no spooking," Lavenson says, adding that he has grown up with horses and understands their nature. "It's not a confusing landing. We're in radio control at all times."
The horses were allowed to approach, take a good sniff and generally get used to the chopper, which someday they might encounter on a rescue mission. Probably the spookiest part of the session was the engine noise and the "wup wup" of the blades. "It's not noise," clarifies Lavenson with some pride . "It's sound. Noise is what your son makes with his music."
The group experienced its first mounted session together successfully. Black has been in training every week since January just to become one of the more than 100 volunteers who donate time and all of each searches expenses to learn how to properly search and rescue. She is now a graduate of the group affectionately termed "ground pounders," a reference to the miles they trudge when called in to search for evidence or lost persons.
Typical of the group's missions was the recent search for the additional remains of Xiana Fairchild, the little girl whose skull was found on the east side of Lexington Resevoir in Los Gatos. A more heartening story ended recently when a missing Mountain View hiker hobbled into a Stanislaus National Forest camp. Helicopters and more than 100 ground searchers had been out looking for him.
In the next months, Black will be spending many more hours training her horse to become one of the 12 mounted team members. The team handles what used to be the job of a posse of sheriff's deputies, until the group gradually turned their duties over to volunteers in the early 1990s.
The helicopter session was the first time Black's big bay quarter horse, Arizona John, had taken part in official training. Typical of the breed, which was developed for all-around use on cattle ranches, the 5-year-old gelding has a mellow nature that stands up well in out-of-the-ordinary situations.
While the majority of the mounted group own quarter horses, there are also Arabians and a Mustang--breeds known for their hardiness. But any horseis eligible for the team if its behavior is good. The criteria are basic: the horse must stand quietly while tied, and the rider must be able to keep it in control.
There have been nearly 12 instances this year when ground searches for people and evidence were conducted both in and out of the county, but the mounted group has not been called out yet.
"Use of the mounted team depends on the terrain," says Lt. John Hirokawa of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Community Service Unit. All search and rescue groups ultimately report to Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith.
"The last time it was called out was in San Mateo in some open terrain," Hirokawa notes. "We found a man who had parked his car near the trail head. He had died of a heart attack." Open terrain like that on Mount Hamilton or in Henry Coe County Park in the east San Jose hills would be likely places to bring horses, he added. An unlikely area would be the steep terrain of the Uvas Canyon County Park.
"Sooner or later, there will be a time when they'll come into use," says helicopter pilot Lavenson about the volunteers. "I think it's great they're out there and willing."
And willing they are to offer their expertise in the name of a small lost child, a wandering Alzheimer patient or a downed pilot. Their specialties are many: dirt bike and ATV riders, cadaver and search and rescue dog handlers, ham radio operators, specialists with the Global Positioning System and map and compass readers.
Their basic training is extensive. It ranges from learning what a bent blade of grass indicates or what the length of a stride says about a person, to preparing for a helicopter landing or splinting a shattered leg.
"All of our specialists go through lengthy hours of training in mapping and tracking skills, CPR and first aid," Hirokawa says. The training is conducted by experienced volunteers both in the field and at an academy--dubbed FUNSAR for Fundamentals of Search and Rescue--held twice a year at the San Jose Fire Department. A 2-inch thick binder covers the course content. Upon completion of the first-aid section of the course, the volunteer becomes an official emergency medical aid first responder.
"The mounted unit, like the canine group, puts in the most time because of the extra time needed to train the animals," Hirokawa adds. The group holds special rides along shrouded deer trails and through dense underbrush to keep their horses--and riders--prepared for off-trail riding. Protective leg covers are standard equipment for the riders. They also participate in four parades a year, such as the Los Gatos Christmas Parade, where their presence is a public reminder of the work they do.
There is no cost to the county for their training or services. All participants provide their own equipment, pay for their training materials and membership fees and are required at the outset to attend the academy where they spend time every week in lectures by professionals in fields such as forensic science. At two weekend field exercises, they learn to gather evidence and carry stretchers up steep cliffs.
Graduation is celebrated by staying a night alone in the wild without special equipment. The object of the night out is for the team members to use survival skills and to gain insight by experiencing what a lost person might feel.
"We started at 8 a.m.," recalls Black of her graduation outing held in Quicksilver Park near Almaden. Her class consisted of seven men and three women. "We hiked the hills all day looking for planted evidence. We checked in periodically with the base camp with our hand radios and came in once for a lunch break ... but we didn't get dinner. At 5 p.m. they took us out alone on what would be one of the coldest (40 degrees) nights of April, dropping us off just before dark. We had only our day packs; everything of comfort value was taken away like blankets, flashlights, our radios and watches. We were allowed only a small tarp. They even took my cigarettes away! In shock about that, I questioned them, so they said I could keep the cigarettes. But then they took my matches!"
The first thing Black knew to do in the fading light was to make mental notes of the area for future reference. The next was to find shelter.
"I found a tree with lots of branches," she continues. "I tied one end of the tarp to it, keeping it as close to me as possible so the air couldn't get in. We had been taught to put leaves under us for insulation, but my hips ached from the cold. It got very dark very fast, and I kept hitting my head on the tent all the time. I was feeling crazy just being there. It wasn't that I was afraid of the dark or the creeping sounds of small animals all around who kept me awake. I never got scared, but I did get a little panicky, being lost and in pain ... The dew set in somewhere around 3 a.m. I was told later--not having a watch prevents you from being able to anticipate how much time you have to endure--and all of a sudden, I was wet. We had been taught to untie our shoelaces to increase circulation, but my feet were wet and frozen in pain. Of course, because we had been drinking water all day--another survival requirement--I had to get up all night ... It was a night from Hell!"
Each graduate had been given a whistle to be used in the event of emergency, or if they believed they couldn't continue. Trainers were back at the base camp, close enough to hear. "No one blew the whistle," Black recalls proudly. "They picked all of us up at dawn. The first thing we did was congratulate each other on making it through the night."
Black wants to do an overnight again, but this time with her horse. "It would help to know how the horse would react should we ever become separated from the group during a rescue," she says.
Black, a 42-year-old native of San Jose, grew up in Los Gatos and Campbell. Her husband, Mike, has his own business--Project Based, Inc., implementing software on contract. They live on 1 1/4 acres in the Los Gatos hills above Monte Sereno where Mike has been rebuilding a 120-year-old Victorian on weekends over the past 10 years.
Tom Ellett waves a banner to signal the CALSTAR helicopter crew to the location of the landing zone during a rescue simulation in Hollister for the Santa Clara County Mounted Search and Rescue.
Three horses watch the busy activities of the family around the house from their stalls behind the garage/barn across the drive. One is a pony for their 8-year-old daughter, Ashley, who wins ribbons for her jumping, both with the Saratoga Pony Club and in horse shows.
Black, a member of the Los Gatos Horseman's Association, has been involved with horses ever since son Brandon, now 11, expressed a love for the animals when he was 3.
"I got him a pony ... You'd have thought I'd have been a bean pole. I was leading that kid through the hills every day ... Then he got into Power Rangers and lost interest," she says with a chuckle. Today he wants to rescue cats, she adds, gesturing to four felines who have the comfortable look of permanent residents.
The horse interest then became hers. It resulted in the rescue of a 25-year-old horse in the Santa Cruz Mountains that was thin and bug-ridden. "We had a wonderful six months together," she recalls. "Then he died. The vet said he went with a smile." But there remained a big gap, which Mike resolved to fill.
"Each Christmas Mike would give me gold jewelry," she reflects. "That Christmas, he brought me home a golden Palomino called Fantasia."
Since then, Black has owned 11 horses. One of them laid her up with an injured back for six months. Another one got her involved in local horse shows where she became caught up in a cumulative show-point system. Because of the prestige of the points, she hired a full-time trainer to ride the horse in shows on a circuit from Hollywood to Sacramento, using his expertise to gain more points.
"If you ask me now why I owned a horse I didn't ride, I'd say I was stupid," she says. She quit the circuit.
Always searching for outlets for a volunteering spirit, Black for a time used her lunch hour at Sony to run over to Menlo Park where she saddled horses for a group that used the horses to aid handicapped children. Eventually, layoffs at the company where she had been for 20 years caught up with her, freeing her to spend full time with her children.
She then became active in her son's school, devoting time as a teacher's aide at Redwood Middle School.
She gained a reputation for being unafraid of involvement, like the time she came upon a man sprawled in the street near a bus stop. "People were actually driving their cars around the poor man. He had been there since the night before when the bus left him off ... drunk. No one was stopping," she says. She did, calling 911 for help.
Another time, she rescued an injured dog involved in a car accident on Highway 9 by taking him to a nearby vet. There in the vet's lobby, she says she had to defy some officers from the Humane Society who claimed they had authority over it since they had been called to the accident to take the dog away. If they had prevailed, the dog would have been denied emergency medical help. Instead, Black says she prevailed.
Black seems cut out for the job of a search and rescue volunteer. It takes commitment, persistence and a desire to help others.
But she was afraid at first. "We were told at the beginning that we had to share our weaknesses with the other team members or else become victims ourselves," she says. "I am over 40, overweight and my legs are short. People were very nice. They slowed down to accommodate the slowest in the group, but my biggest concern was hiking in and out through poison oak and in mud up to my knees."
She had a physical exam to reassure herself, passing it with ease, then faced her first day at the training academy. "Our five-person team did well that day, carrying a [stretcher] with a 175-pound mannequin through a course."
Members of the Santa Clara County Mounted Search and Rescue team simulate loading an accident victim into a medical helicopter in service for CALSTAR. During an actual emergency, the helicopter crew attempts to limit ground time at the scene to less than 10 minutes.
Beyond their initial academy training, a minimum of 15 to 20 hours per month is necessary for the volunteers just to maintain their skills. Animal training sessions go beyond that.
"When a child or an adult is lost, we need vast numbers of people to conduct a search," Hirokawa says. "They have to be brought together quickly. That means the volunteers must be able to leave their jobs immediately." Because the need is sporadic, keeping such a large, well-trained group on the payroll is impossible. "We value our volunteers. Families with missing loved ones are happy to know they are out there and available to us."
Black warns that there is a tremendous investment of time to become a search and rescue mounted team volunteer, but knowing the people the group attracts makes it an engaging experience.
"They are so warm and caring and full of fun," she says. "They are involved because they love people and animals. If my child were ever missing, I'd feel so comforted knowing there was a group like them out there ready to go find him."
Those interested in the county search and rescue program should contact Lt. John Hirokawa at the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Community Service Unit, 408.299.3238, or program coordinator Mike Edwards at www.aasar.org. The next search and rescue academy fundamentals training session begins Sept. 6, 7-11 p.m., at the San Jose Fire Department, 255 S. Montgomery, at the corner of Park Street in San Jose.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
