The unsung heroes behind successful Wellington and Wairarapa search and rescue missions

Combing two separate mountain ranges for very different search subjects proved a daunting challenge – even for some of the country's hardest-working volunteers.

Land Search and Rescue (LandSAR) teams rose to the challenge to provide two high-profile successes in as many days, as police dog Thames and cross-country runner Susan O'Brien were found alive and well in the Tararua and Rimutaka ranges.

O'Brien's relieved family thanked searchers for their "tireless and unwavering efforts", while Thames's police handler and his family also hailed the dozens of people, mainly volunteers, involved in his safe return.

So who are these high-achieving, but often unsung heroes, who materialise at the nation's road-ends and ridge-tops to help lost people find their way home? 

Police tend to get the credit for successful searches, which are more due to skilled, dedicated civilian volunteers, according to Senior Constable Tony Matheson, Wairarapa police's land search and rescue co-ordinator. 

He was in charge of more than 20 searchers who spent a week looking for Thames, who ironically disappeared during a search and rescue exercise the previous weekend. 

"These are guys that have worked all day and they go into the hills in the middle of the night in the worst conditions... we're [police] all getting paid, the rest of them are all doing it to help other people. The bulk of the hours is being given by people for nothing." 

They might be volunteers, but they all commit to regular, professional training including advanced bushcraft, survival, navigation, first aid and search skills on their own time, collectively giving up around 60,000 hours of their evenings and weekends a year, according to LandSAR figures. That's on top of some 14,000 hours spent annually on actual searches.

Organised into 61 regional groups, rosters ensure trained searchers are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that neither the government – nor the people rescued – are asked to pay for these searches. 

LandSAR receives government funding for running costs, but much of its work depends on donated time and money.

Occasional suggestions a rescued person should be charged for carelessly putting themselves in danger are unhelpful and even dangerous, says Wellington police search and rescue co-ordinator sergeant Anthony Harmer, who co-ordinated the search by more than 50 people for mother of two O'Brien after she went missing during a trail running event last Sunday.

She was found the next day after a cold night in the bush, which included drinking her own breast milk. 

"We'd much rather, if someone's in need, that they not concern themselves that there may be a bill at the end of it. If there's a need, there'll be a response."

ALL-TERRAIN EXPERTISE

As well as having day jobs, the 3500 volunteers nationwide are themselves lovers of the outdoors. 

They're trampers, mountaineers or members of deer-stalking clubs, as comfortable in a sheer, bush-choked gully as they are on a well-marked track.

Cases in point are the Wairarapa volunteers Matheson picked for a final push into high, rugged terrain to find Thames as bad weather loomed: "I chose Don French, who's a very experienced mountaineer and also [has] years of tramping experience in the Tararuas, off-track; and John McCann, who's an ex-deer culler... very, very experienced outdoorsman, very knowledgeable of the Tararuas and can track, he doesn't need to be on a track to be very confident about where he's going."

LandSAR carries out not only wilderness searches, but also finds people in suburban, urban and rural areas, including shorelines and caves.

The organisation was set up in 1933 when 20 search teams spent two weeks failing to find four lost trampers in the Tararuas. They survived but with tramping and hunting booming, Kiwis roaming further and more getting lost, the need for a systematic approach to finding them became obvious.

Wellington's Tararua Tramping Club, the country's oldest, and the Federated Mountain Clubs (FMC) drew up the first rules for searches  and agreed to the police taking charge of them, given their national presence and communications network.

Also important are the police's role to investigate deaths for the coroner on the rare occasion a lost person dies, and its investigative capacity when someone's last whereabouts are a total mystery.

That police oversight continues today for regional searches relying on local knowledge and volunteers, including, crucially, regional Amateur Radio Emergency Communications groups. There are nearly 2000 of these "category I" searches each year.

The other type of search, a category II, is nationally co-ordinated by the Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Lower Hutt.

They look for missing aircraft and people lost at sea, and retrieve people who, wisely and increasingly, carry emergency locator beacons in the bush, activating them if they get into serious trouble. There are about 800 "category II" searches a year.

LandSAR also has specialist volunteer cave, dog, cliff and river-rescue teams, among others. The Department of Conservation, which manages the land most people get lost on, is an associate member alongside the Federated Mountain Clubs, the Speleological Society and the Mountain Safety Council, which has an educational role.

So how does this disparate bunch come together when someone dials 111 to report a loved one overdue?

THE NEED FOR SPEED

First, a "search urgency matrix" is used to analyse what happened and whether a measured or more urgent response is required. 

An elderly, lightly-dressed person with a heart condition an hour overdue from a three-hour walk, as night falls in winter, might require more urgency than an experienced, well-equipped hunter half a day late from a week-long trip.

"No two searches are ever the same," says Harmer.

Then, if warranted, a planning meeting of police and local LandSAR experts assigns roles such as operations, logistics, safety and communications, and appoints specialist leaders such as dog handlers or cavers.

Even the catering for hungry, tired searchers is carefully planned and volunteers muck in making sandwiches and serving soup.

Harmer says anyone keen to donate time, food or resources should first contact the local police search co-ordinator to ensure their support is best used, and under no circumstances should people just head off into the bush to look for someone. 

"You could quickly become a liability rather than an asset." 

Next, an incident action plan is drawn up on a whiteboard, setting out time constraints, tasks, roles, strategies, weather and other details. 

It's a constantly evolving document which orients the search and serves as a handover tool between operational teams, shifts and phases. Phases can last from 12 to 24 hours, after which the operation is reassessed and peer-reviewed to "break lines of thinking" and look for holes or alternatives, Harmer says.

Inter-district co-operation is a hallmark – in the search for Susan O'Brien, Wellington's LandSAR was joined by two Hutt Valley community rescue teams as well as volunteers from Horowhenua, Wairarapa and Manawatu. 

Everything is designed for speed and efficiency, since every passing minute could be the difference between life and death.

A key planning element is establishing the person's "last-known point", which can be easy if they've told someone their plans or made a phone call from a ridge. If not, which is often the case, detective work is required. 

"Sometimes it's just, oh, my flatmate went tramping somewhere and hasn't come back," says Matheson, with a heavy sigh. 

A boundary is then drawn around that point, setting the outer limits of the search area. This area is based on what Matheson calls "the science of SAR [search and rescue]" – international research and statistics on "lost person behaviour", detailed in manuals establishing the most probable movements of different categories such as hunters, trampers or mountain runners, in given terrain and circumstances.

Other categories include an autistic child, an elderly person with Alzheimer's or a "despondent person", who may be contemplating suicide.

A "bicycle wheel" model is then used to divide the search area into workable segments, prioritised according to how likely the lost person is to be there.

The spokes are likely to include travel routes such as tracks, ridge-lines and riverbeds, and along them are "reflectors" or "decision points" such as track junctions or creek forks – places where a lost person will pause. There, skilled LandSAR trackers will often find footprints, flattened grass, broken twigs or other signs.

Specialist techniques include "cutting for sign" – slowly quartering the ground around a decision point – analysing topographical maps to see how the lie of the land could influence a walker's trajectory, and various methods with trained tracking dogs, whose scenting ability is far better than ours. Thames the police dog had himself found a lost woman just a few weeks ago, before his own real-life experience of being lost in the bush.

The searchers develop a strong bond as they deal with tough situations. 

"It's pretty intense when someone's life is really at risk and you've got a short window of time to make a difference... if someone's up high, and the weather's bad, and they're in trouble, the pressure's on," Matheson says.

But a good result, like the two successful searches this week, is its own reward: "It was just a huge relief...  when they had the sighting of the dog, man, it was just gold."

The volunteers' main attribute is knowing their patch, and sensing where people – or dogs – lost in it are likely to end up, he says.

"Years on the hills count, at the end of the day, in search and rescue."  

HOW NOT TO GET LOST

Follow the Outdoor Safety Code:

• Plan your trip - Seek local knowledge, plan the route and the time you'll need.

• Tell someone your plans and leave a date for when to raise the alarm.

• Be aware of the weather - Check the forecast and expect changes.

• Know your limits - Challenge yourself within your physical limits and experience.

• Take enough food, clothing and equipment for the worst-case scenario, and at least two means of communication. Cell phones are often useless in the bush but Personal Locator Beacons can be relied on in an emergency. They retail for around $500 or can be hired for less than $5 a day, with some firms offering a cheap courier service - see beacons.org.nz

I'M LOST. NOW WHAT?

Think STAR:

• STOP: Take a breath, sit down and stay calm
• THINK: Look around you, listen, brainstorm ideas
• ASSESS: Evaluate the options and their potential consequences
• RESPOND: Take the best alternative.

If in doubt - stay put.

THE WILL TO SURVIVE

Lost runner Susan O'Brien's survival techniques were unusual but sensible, according to University of Otago lecturer in wilderness and expedition medicine Jenny Visser.

O'Brien, 29, revealed after she was found on Monday she resorted to drinking some of her own breast milk during her cold night in the bush. "That was hydration but also nourishment - breast milk has got a lot of calories," said Visser, also a LandSAR Wellington medical advisor.

While dehydration could kill in as little as 24 hours in extreme circumstances, keeping hydrated and fed was as much about having the mental energy to make safe decisions, Visser said. "Bad decision-making has a big impact on survival."

Food also enabled shivering, which consumed four or five times the normally required calories but was a vital defence mechanism against hypothermia.  

That could be lethal within hours if someone was wet through and exposed. "But you could totally change that if all you had was something warm to put on and reduce the wind-chill factor – you could extend it by hours or even days."

O'Brien dug a hole and covered herself with soil to keep warm. "I wouldn't say it was a bad idea, but whether it provided any extra protection... it might have made her feel better," said Visser.

Good preparation was the best survival technique. "Always having a bit of energy food with you and a dry layer of clothing."