Unfair

Sometimes, somethings in life just don't seem fair.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this idea today. I'm on my 3 and final shift of my block in the office today and things were crazy busy again. The weekends are the busiest time for our Search and Rescue crews, with people out and enjoying the sunshine, usually accompanied with alcohol, combine that with sheer stupidity you get a lot of people hurting themselves in remote locations. But sometimes we have those calls that are simply sad.
On Aug 13 ambulance crews responded to a fisherman that fell and hit his head, the crews requested SAR to help get the patient out. When SAR arrived the patient was deceased following a traumatic head injury. The worst part is that in trying to pull this guy to safety his friend fell in the river before crews arrived. We had a very unusual amount of water this year and the rivers are quite high in the whole province, higher water means faster water here. Search and Rescue crews and Swift Water Technicians worked well into the night looking for this guy, but with no daylight left the search was put on hold. The crews went back out every day at first light to continue their search.
I will stop here to add that Search and Rescue in my province is a volunteer based program. Every SAR member here is volunteer, they leave their jobs, their spouses, their kids and their lives to search for people FOR FREE. These people are among the most selfless people I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Moving on.
The crews were getting disgruntled and feeling discouraged, they had said that if nothing was found this weekend they would be putting the search to rest indefinitely. I am lucky to call one of the SAR Managers 'friend' on this team and so I knew how tired the crews really were (not just the weary voices we get on the other end of the phone in the office).
Today at 2000hrs my friend called into the office and asked for me. Normally the SAR Managers will give a report to whoever happens to answer the phone so when he asked for me I was a little confused but welcomed the chance to chat all the same.
"How goes the battle PW"
I was met with a deep breath, and a shaky "not good CJ, not good"
I've never heard this man rattled in my life. It was like the moment you realize your parents are actually just human and they can be afraid of things just like you. It is an unnerving feeling.
"What's up PW? Everything ok?"-the rest of the office perked up. We have all been on edge since losing our first SAR member merely weeks ago while on a call.
"Well CJ, I've been doing this for 40+ years and I have never been this disappointed" he said. "We found him. The clothing matched the description. He was caught in a log jam."
"I said well that sounds promising, what happened?"
He regaled me with the story in words I will choose not to share as they are fairly difficult to digest. Essentially the team worked for hours pulling the now deceased subject out of the log jam slowly and meticulously. The team was happy to have found the subject and the RCMP notified the family, who came down to identify the body once pulled from the jam. Unfortunately things didn't go very well. The log jam slipped, causing the body to slip down into the river into some strangely placed hole in the bottom of the river. The river was only 3 feet deep so the crews tried to reach him again, but the log jam had caused some boulders on the side of the banks to roll, and they rolled right over top of the hole in which the subject had landed.
The family saw everything. The family was there with hopes of bringing home their son/brother/husband/father and instead went home with a crushing disappointment. Needless to say the SAR team was crushed also.
When he was finished, PW simply let out a long whistle and began to cry. I told him we were all proud of the hard work, and tried to comfort him as best I could. He thanked me and we finished up with the other details.
I have to admit this call shook me. I've had bad calls both on the ambulance and in the office but this one hit me differently. I am shaken by the unfairness to it all. It's unfair that a family has to go another night knowing their loved one died trying to save a friend and without the closure of a hand to hold or a face to see one last time. I hate that the SAR team came so close to finishing and it slipped through their hands. My heart is with the team tonight, and my friend PW, and the family that lost a loved one.
Sometimes all the negativity in this job gets to me. Tonight is one of those times.