The science behind finding a lost needle in a haystack of rugged country

As a father and his three children remain missing on the Waikato west coast for a week, a veteran searcher says it’s nearly impossible to understand what’s going through the mind of a missing person in most search scenarios.

Search activity continues in the Marakopa area for missing man Thomas Phillips and his three young children after their ute was found on remote Kiritehere beach.

Taupō Search and Rescue leader Senior Constable Barry Shepherd, speaking about search operations in general, said natural competitiveness, managing searcher fatigue, the psychology of lost person behaviour and determining high and low risk areas are all elements playing their part.

Shepherd, who has been involved in Search and Rescue in Taupō since 1986, including volunteer crewing on a rescue helicopter for nearly 30 years, said, speaking generally, even experts could only narrow down likelihoods.

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“There’s all this statistical data that might say someone in a particular category might be found within 300 metres of where they were last seen... but if the data says 50 per cent of people are found within this distance, it means that 50 per cent are found in the rest of the world,” said Shepherd.

“It’s really useful stuff, because it’s all about searching linear features, ridge lines, tracks, fence lines, streams and things like that… Certain categories of lost persons will do certain things – but not 100 per cent of the time.”

But searchers had to start somewhere, he said. “You still have to go and look.”

And search and rescue was methodical, an evidence-based philosophy, one that helped searchers prioritise zones.

“Where it’s high risk, low likelihood we should probably target those places first... because we have a finite resource with an infinite area, especially if you have got the maritime environment.”

CHRIS MARSHALL/STUFF
Taupō Search and Rescue leader Barry Shepherd. Motivation is generally not an issue. “You tell yourself that it could be me, it could be me that finds the big one today.”

Time was the old enemy, said Shepherd.

In a coastal search the high risk was the sea.

“So you’d want to put more resources more quickly into the sea, albeit that you still want to search the land, in case they have been washed up and are sheltering somewhere. It’s a tricky one.”

With water involved there were lots of variables, said Shepherd, the weather, the current, the tide.

“Whereas, on the land on the face of it, it would seem a little more simple.”

But on land, as three-year-old wandering boy Axle from Tolaga Bay proved in May this year, people can travel a long way in a short space of time.

Searcher concentration could wane, said Shepherd.

“But you tell yourself that it could be me, it could be me that finds the big one today.

“There’s always a bit of competitive nature amongst people, regardless of what you’re doing. If you jump into a search boat or a helicopter and think I am going to be the one today to see this and to actually find something.”

“You can do day after day but have a bit of a break every so often.”

Police and search and rescue personnel worked on one operation in Tongariro National Park in 2017 for four weeks, he said.

“A lot of people start worrying about fatigue and your effectiveness once you’re tired, but people stay awake all day. If you have to do late nights early mornings, that’s where it catches up with you.”

Any search team would be motivated by planning for success, he said.

“We don’t plan to fail. So you always hope for the best and plan to succeed.”