ST. PAUL – On Dec. 6, the St. Paul Elks donated $13,000 to St. Paul Search and Rescue (St. Paul SAR).
Ken Gerlinsky, who has been the president for St. Paul SAR for the past six years, said the donation will directly support St. Paul SAR Team's Swift Water Rescue Unit with equipment that will be ready for the 2024 open water season.
“We pride ourselves in our ground search, and our drone team, but now we also have six or seven key members who already completed their Swift Water Rescue training,” in Fort McMurray last summer, said Gerlinsky.
Robert Tymofichuk, one of the founding members of St. Paul SAR, said there are incidents that do happen in and around lakes and rivers in the Lakeland region. With Swift Water training, it allows St. Paul SARS to respond to these situations without endangering themselves.
Proper equipment plays a big part in how to also properly respond, Tymofichuk said. For example, Swift Water response would require a special type of drysuit that allows a member to move and swim easier in the water.
Another type of equipment required is a “special life jacket” that allows a rope to be tied on the back, ensuring the wearer does not get swept up by moving water,” said Tymofichuk.
Anything can happen in the water, like the possibility of getting entangled by trees, banging against rocks, or “your own rope can drown you,” said Tymofichuk, listing examples.
Bringing closure
Tymofichuk also said that “a lot of our work... is bringing closure for the family,” explaining not every situation is a rescue operation, but also retrieval – which means retrieving the body of a victim. “It’s horrible,” when families are unable to reunite with their lost loved ones, so retrieval helps families “get closure” and begin the process of moving on.
When asked if St. Paul SAR has encountered retrieval operations in the water since its inception in 1996, Tymofichuk said yes. He recalled a time when there were drowning fatalities five years in a row in the area.
Tymofichuk took the opportunity to bring awareness to the importance of always wearing life jackets when in the water. “We’ve had so many tragedies that a person has responded to, and I could probably say in most of those cases, if they would have had their life jackets on, they probably would be alive today.”
Also, in any swift water situation, search and rescue units risk their own lives when responding. In addition to proper training, proper equipment reduces the risks involved.
Evolution of St. Paul SAR
Since 1996, St. Paul SAR has evolved. It began as a Ground Search and Rescue (GSAR), and throughout the years, with the help of the community, St. Paul SAR now includes drone units, in addition to the Swift Water Rescue unit.
Over the years, it has also acquired technology and equipment to aid with the effort, such as a Recreational Vehicle (RV) converted into a command post. It has equipment including but not limited to GPS equipment, a series of computers, a radio, a “crank up tower” with an antenna to improve communication, and a large 4K monitor, said Tymofichuk.
SAR has also since upgraded its communication with portable Wi-Fi with Starlink. Traditionally, SAR teams relied on cellphone services and signal boosters for their GPS and other forms of communication. But in remote locations, this can be unreliable.
In general, all the equipment works together. For example, when looking for a missing person, search teams each have their own communication devices, which could be their cellphones. If they find a piece of clothing for example, they can send that to the command post in real time. The command post can then ask a family member of the missing person to confirm if the piece of clothing is owned by their loved one.
The information gained would then help St. Paul SAR to better track down a missing person.
St. Paul SAR can also operate at night with its night vision equipment, allowing them to look for heat signatures. And with drones, they can verify if a heat signature is something that could be important or if it just belongs to an animal.
Not only do drones aid searches, but they also help notify search units of potential dangers such as with wildlife. If there’s a bear, for example, search units can be warned ahead of time.
Back at the command post, the monitor shows the coordinates and the map of a location being searched. “We know where you are, we know where you’ve been,” Tymofichuk said. “So, technology is important.”
Expensive
But the equipment is expensive, and there are operational costs involved, like insurance.
To afford this, St. Paul SAR does its own fundraising to generate revenue. This is done via community service, bartending, or working casinos.
Tymofichuk says they are especially grateful for help from the community.
Gerlinsky agreed. He said that annually, equipment maintenance and insurance costs over $7,000, in addition to other costs.
But over the last couple of decades, St. Paul SAR has made significant improvements thanks to the generous help and donations from the community and various organizations and businesses.
Businesses have been supportive and, “We’ve also had a couple of occasions with some significant grants from oil companies like CNRL, and Enbridge has been us money annually,” said Gerlinksy.
Last year, Enbridge also donated a fully equipped $70,000 truck that could tow St. Paul SAR’s command post, for example.
Without help from everyone, St. Paul SAR wouldn’t exist as it is today, said Gerlinsky.
Jim Turton, president of the St. Paul Elks, echoed this sentiment, explaining that while the St. Paul Elks’ primary mission is to support children, the donation to SAR was an “opportunity to support the whole Lakeland community.”
