The Western Slope ATV Association (WSATVA) provides search and rescue assistance to Mesa County, CO. And has since shortly after it was formed back in 1987.
“Some of the original members had been in river dive units,” said Ken Sanders, club vice president. “They were instrumental in starting both groups. In fact, part of the bylaws for the ATV club included the fact that WSATVA would provide an ATV team to Mesa County Sheriff’s Department for the purpose of search and rescue.”
According to its website, the Mesa County Search and Rescue Control (SARC) was organized 50 years ago in 1966, with a few Sheriff Posse members and citizen band radio operators. Today, it has nine volunteer teams on call for the 3,300 acre county, each training in its unique specialty: horseback, rope climbing, ground search, dive, boat, snowmobile, K-9, communications and ATV.
About 35 members of WSATVA belong to the SARC ATV Team. Sanders joined the club seven years ago as vice president and team leader of the ATV Team. The next year he became president of SARC. Last year, SARC conducted 100 missions. The ATV Team was involved in 15 of them.
“The call comes into 911, or to the county or city dispatch. If it’s a call that somebody is lost, the Sheriff’s Deputies go out and look,” said Sanders. “If it requires a mission, they call SARC. We have a mission coordinator on call 24 hours a day. They may call the mission coordinator and say ‘I need the Ground Team, the ATV Team and Comm Team.’ We have a text messaging system and all the teams are on it. Usually within 30 minutes we have people on the road going out. Everyone is on call. For the ATV Team, there are three of us that can send a call out.
“Most of the time our missions involve finding someone. If it’s a bad one, we call the St. Mary’s helicopter. The ATV Team has found several people who may not have made it had we not been there on time. One elderly lady was missing. We had looked all day and night and found her the next morning. We caught her tracks on the road along a fence and found her out in sagebrush laying on the ground, conscious but unable to move. We got her warmed up and out of there into another vehicle to get her back, she was all right. But it was late fall. She would have never made it if we hadn’t found her then.”
Each SARC Team trains on a regular basis, and follows a full set of operating procedures created by the Sheriff. Mock missions are also held that involve all SARC Teams. When called on a real mission, the ATV Team goes out in two, three or four person groups. “Every team has an equipment list we carry,” said Sanders. “Everybody keeps up first aid and CPR and we’re really specific as to what we can do, following state laws, on first aid.
“The Sheriff is extremely supportive of Search & Rescue for all the teams. He always says how appreciative he is. We got an award from the county for the amount of work we do, an outstanding recognition award for service, trail work and Search and Rescue.”
For more information on Mesa County SARC, visit: http://sheriff.mesacounty.us/volunteer/template.aspx?id=5323. To learn more about WSATVA, including a 30-minute documentary on the club’s many trail projects, go to: http://wsatva.org/.
