Early in the summer of 2008, a young boy went missing in the woods near Madison County. First to respond to the crisis was the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group - a member of the Appalachian Search and Rescue Conference and one of the University's many student organizations.
"It was the first mission I ever commanded," BRMRG President Evan Koepke said.
Through the BRMRG's and the local sheriff department's efforts, the 9-year-old boy was found uninjured, walking alongside a road.
"It's a high like no other," Koepke said. "It's absolutely wonderful to see a mission turn out well."
The Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group was founded 30 years ago in response to the growing need for search and rescue teams in the Appalachian area, Koepke said. Feeling that local police were not meeting the need of rescue teams, several independent groups formed, modeled after rescue teams in the Rocky Mountains. Even today, Virginia has no state-run rescue organizations, Koepke said, and relies on independent rescue groups like BRMRG to find missing persons and aircraft.
Most of BRMRG's 30 to 40 volunteers are University students, although the group is trying to build up its Charlottesville membership, Koepke said. All members vary in their time commitments. Some members come to meetings just often enough to stay qualified while others get "devoured" by it, staying involved for 10 or more years, Koepke said.
To become "call-out" qualified and participate in missions, members undergo training in advanced outdoor skills such as rock-climbing, clue awareness and land navigation. Members also learn basic medical attention techniques and how to extract a person from various situations. After becoming call-out qualified, a member can advance to the level of field team member, field team leader, incident staff and incident commander. All require more intense and detailed training.
Third-year College student Jeff Strong joined BRMRG this summer and recently became call-out qualified. So far, he has learned wilderness survival tips such as how to search for clues and communication techniques.
The group holds one-hour meetings every Wednesday evening, and Saturdays consist of in-the-field training. A few weekends ago, Strong and other new members "got lost" in the woods to learn how to use a compass.
Another skill members learn is how to tie knots, such as the figure eight, bowline, girth hitch and the double fishermen's bend - all of which are useful for many different situations during the search and rescue process, including raising a radio tower, pitching tents and securing injured parties.
"I didn't know very many knots before I joined the group and I learned 10 or more knots within a couple months," said Greg Stronko, the group's vice president and a University staff member. BRMRG "caught my attention. It gets you into the outdoors more, helps people and you learn skills like knots and repelling. And it's not just fun stuff but a service to the state and community."
The group is on-call 24/7, 365 days a year. Once a member is call-out qualified, his name is placed on the roster and the group notifies him when a mission comes up via e-mail or text message. Although members are encouraged to participate in as many missions as possible, they are not required to go on all of them.
Sometimes, if a member is unable to go on-location, he can work dispatch instead, Stronko said. Working dispatch consists of manning the phones for the rescue conference, keeping track of the members during the search and relaying to other groups any equipment needs, Stronko said. A rescue cannot function without a dispatch unit, and the job can be done from anywhere as long as the dispatcher has a computer and phone, Stronko noted.
Every task, no matter how small, contributes to the mission's success. During Koepke's first search and rescue, all he did was paperwork at the base camp.
"The next day, though, I found out that the tasks I had written helped in the success of the find," Koepke said.
When a mission arises, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management or a local sheriff contacts BRMRG, Koepke said. Other times, the Appalachian Search and Rescue Conference notifies the group of a mission. The frequency with which the BRMRG is called upon to aid in a search and rescue varies from year to year. On average, the group participates in 20 to 30 missions a year, most of them during the summer, Koepke said.
Once the call goes out, the BRMRG responds as quickly as possible. Some missions are as easy as finding someone and walking them out, while other rescues are more complicated. Most search and rescue missions involve missing elderly persons, alzheimers patients, small children or lost and injured hikers.
"Sometimes there is nothing you can do," Koepke said. "But you always get a good feeling from contributing to the mission and seeing a loved one returned okay or for a family to get closure."
Not all missions, however, end successfully. One such mission occurred about a year ago when a hunter went missing on the border of Shenandoah National Park. He suffered from hypothermia and did not survive the night, Koepke said.
"Even though he wasn't alive, the family and whole community said thank you to us, and it means so much to them just to have that closure," Koepke said.
Recently, the BRMRG has been facing changes to its training because of new regulations. Usually, all the group's training and certification is done "in-house." Lately, though, there has been a move by the federal government to make the states more involved in search and rescue training and call-out qualification, Koepke said.
Despite these new requirements, the Blue Ridge Mountain Rescue Group will continue to do what it does best: teaching wilderness safety and conducting search and rescue missions.
"It's about growing, learning skills, having fun and applying those skills to something very worthwhile," Koepke said.
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