I'm a Search and Rescue Officer for the US Forest Service, I have some stories to tell

I wasn't sure where else to post these stories, so I figured I'd share them here. I've been an SAR officer for a few years now, and along the way I've seen some things that I think you guys will be interested in. <br><br>* I have a pretty good track record for finding missing people. Most of the time they just wander off the path, or slip down a small cliff, and they can't find their way back. The majority of them have heard the old 'stay where you are' thing, and they don't wander far. But I've had two cases where that didn't happen. Both bother me a lot, and I use them as motivation to search even harder on the missing persons calls I get. <br>The first was a little boy who was out berry-picking with his parents. He and his sister were together, and both of them went missing around the same time. Their parents lost sight of them for a few seconds, and in that time both the kids apparently wandered off. When their parents couldn't find them, they called us, and we came out to search the area. We found the daughter pretty quickly, and when we asked where her brother was, she told us that he'd been taken away by 'the bear man.' She said he gave her berries and told her to stay quiet, that he wanted to play with her brother for a while. The last she saw of her brother, he was riding on the shoulders of 'the bear man' and seemed calm. Of course, our first thought was abduction, but we never found a trace of another human being in that area. The little girl was also insistent that he wasn't a normal man, but that he was tall and covered in hair, 'like a bear', and that he had a 'weird face.' We searched that area for *weeks*, it was one of the longest calls I've ever been on, but we never found a single trace of that kid. <br>The other was a young woman who was out hiking with her mom and grandpa. According to the mom, they'd all been together at the start of the hike, and it was only when they got to the first clearing that they realized she was gone. They thought she'd run ahead to the next cliff, and they didn't want to yell for her because they didn't want to start a panic, so they just waited at the cliff for her to show up. When she didn't, they started back along the trail, but they didn't find her. They called us up, and we went out looking for her. We searched that area for a good long while, and we never found a trace of her. I even did some extra searches on my own, because I'm sure you can guess why this case bothered me so much. I never found a trace of her.<br><br>* A few times, I've been out on my own searching with a canine, and they've tried to lead me straight up cliffs. Not hills, not even rock faces. Straight, sheer cliffs with no possible handholds. It's always baffling, and in those cases we usually find the person on the other side of the cliff, or miles away from where the canine has led us. I'm sure there's an explanation, but it's sort of strange.<br><br>* I was on a search once where the canine indicated repeatedly inside an old, abandoned mine. We didn't want to go in, because those places are fucking death traps, but we couldn't leave behind someone who might be injured. We searched the place and found nothing, but I was convinced that the missing person was in there, and that the canine had smelled them. I ended up going back to the mine after the search was called off, and searching it again. Nothing. No sign of anybody. <br><br>* One particularly sad case involved the recovery of a body. A woman had been out hiking with her husband, and she'd fallen down a cliff. When we got there, we found that she was deceased, and that her husband was sitting in the driver's seat of their car, dead as well. He had a gun in his hand, and later reports confirmed that he had shot himself. The funeral for both of them was sad as hell, and I couldn't stop thinking about how horrible it must have been for him to plant a bullet in his head while his wife's body was still at the bottom of a cliff. I can't imagine what must have gone through his mind in order for him to make that decision. <br><br>* I was out on my own one day when I got a call to help locate a car that had gone over a cliff. I wasn't too far from where the accident had happened, so I told them I'd take a look on my way back. When I got to the cliff, I couldn't see anything. It was snowing, and the cliff was pretty tall. I figured that the car must have gone into the trees, and that they wouldn't be able to see it from the road. I decided to go down and take a look, and as I made my way, I realized that the cliff was taller than I thought. I had to stop twice to repel, and by the time I got to the bottom, I was pretty sure that if a car had gone over, it would've been totaled. When I finally made it to the bottom, I started searching the trees, but there was no sign of a vehicle. I walked the cliff face for about a mile, and I was starting to think that they'd called me out unnecessarily. I decided to go back up, and I started to make my way. I had just started to climb when I heard a noise, and I saw a piece of the cliff come loose over my head. I looked up just in time to see a car tumble over the edge of the cliff and land on the spot where I had just been. It was absolutely gut-wrenching, and I screamed at the top of my lungs as I watched it fall. It must have been a complete wreck, because the car just *exploded* when it hit the ground. I started to climb up immediately, but I called in the accident and hoped that nobody had died. When I reached the top of the cliff, I saw that the car had gone through the barrier. It had obviously been going way too fast, and the driver had lost control, gone over the edge, and tumbled down the cliff face. When we got inside the wreck, we found three dead. I can't describe to you the state that the bodies were in. It was complete carnage, and I don't think I can ever forgetting the sight of that car and the people in it. <br><br>That's pretty much it. I'm sorry if these stories sort of seemed all over the place, I'm not the best writer.