Search And Rescue Have you ever thought about how much is taken for granted? If something does not directly affect our lives how much do we think about it? As we age I think we become more in tuned to how everything around us interrelated but when we are younger we do not put a great deal of thought into it. We live in Minnesota. We used to live out in the country in a portion of the state that does not have many lakes, that is by Minnesota standards. We had to drive ten miles to get to the closest lake in many areas of the states you would have past dozens of lakes in ten miles. Six years ago we bought a house on the shores of one of the largest lakes in the state. Now that we live in a lake community we realize how much the economy affects the lives of people that make their living from lake related activities. We also have learned the tough and often dangerous jobs that the search and rescue teams face. When we were living out in the country we knew people that were involved in volunteer fire departments as well as emergency medical technicians, but we did not have search and rescue teams, other than the sheriff’s department. Now that we are in the lakes area we have gotten to know several people that volunteer on the search and rescue teams in different parts of the lake. The lake is huge 132,000 acres. It is twenty seven miles across at its widest point and sixty miles to go around it. The lake is within the borders of three different counties so there are three different search and rescue teams that service the lake. The county where an incident occurs is responsible to dispatch a team, but usually all the teams will respond, especially in the case of a drowning where the body has not been recovered. The majority of calls to the search and rescue teams do not come during the summer months with boating, fishing and swimming, they come in the winter months when fishermen or snowmobile riders go through the ice. There are usually three to four thousand fish houses on the lake during the winter season, so all this weight and driving on the ice along with currents that keep ice thin, results in people breaking through. Unfortunately some people cannot get back up on the ice and drown. The search and rescue teams then have to estimate where a body would float and try to recover it. This is an emotional and exhausting operation. We are very proud of and thankful to the men and women that volunteer for these efforts. Summary Related Articles Related Sites