The Backpack

With Eva I walk to the place where we think the backpack is under the snow, and I start to dig there. It is not easy to scoop the packed and frozen snow away, but after the necessary exertion I indeed find a backpack. I shake off the snow and open it up. It is the father’s backpack, because in one of the sections I find his driver’s license. He is a forty-two-year-old man from Germany. I bring the backpack to the operational leader. He gives me a nod of approval. They have almost reached the body, I see, because they are digging very quickly, but also carefully. As soon as the head of the man is free, the physician bows over him while the others dig further. The physician orders haste, because the unconscious man is still alive. His body temperature, however, is down to a minimum and he is in danger of dying. Shortly the man is on his way by helicopter to a special clinic for victims of avalanches. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive.

We thought that might be the case as we left the avalanche area. Despite the quick work of an avalanche dog, help often comes too late. Almost every avalanche is fatal, and the number of dead that we find under the snow each year is, unfortunately, greater than number of people whose lives we save. There is a great danger of suffocation because snow sticks in the airways and the extreme cold causes hypothermia in the buried person. After half an hour under the snow, the chance of surviving is only about 30 per cent. Claims that avalanche dogs can be sent from lowland countries to help people in the Alps are nonsense. They would arrive much too late. Only avalanche dogs stationed in the vicinity can save human lives.

Figure 12.28 Ruud and Eva. The handler and dog form a team in which each member has specific skills.

13

A Serious Task

Natural disasters in recent years have proven beyond any doubt that only search and rescue dogs can locate victims under rubble quickly and effectively. To achieve that end, dogs and handlers require serious, professional training. The training and missions of search and rescue dog teams often demand great sacrifices and efforts from handlers and dogs. But the results make everything worthwhile.

With Faultless Precision

This work is usually unpaid, because search and rescue dog work usually happens on a voluntary basis. For each search and rescue dog handler, the handshake of a person found or the gratitude of next of kin means much more than compensation for expenses.

Salvaging people alive is a tremendous stimulus for the handler, as well for the dog, to go on with this work. Search and rescue dogs can also locate dead people with faultless precision, so that they can be salvaged, too. This salvage means a lot to the next of kin, because it ends the uncertainty in a period of restless hoping and waiting, without being able to do anything. Both searches require close teamwork between search and rescue dogs and handlers.

Around the world, we have found more than once that the professional and responsible training of search and rescue dog teams—both dog and handler—is vital. Such a team must undergo serious and intensive training to prepare for their future tasks. Sadly, we have found that search and rescue dog work also attracts people who abuse this work with dogs for their own honor and glory, or who use their certificates to impress people or increase the value of their puppies.