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 cases I get called on. <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 mother, her daughter had climbed up a tree to get a better view of the forest, and she'd never come back down. They waited at the base of the tree for hours, calling her name, before they called for help. Again, we searched everywhere, and we never found a trace of her. I have no idea where she could possibly have gone, because neither her mother or grandpa saw her come down.<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>* One particularly sad case involved the recovery of a body. A nine-year-old girl fell down an embankment and got impaled on a dead tree at the base. It was a complete freak accident, but I'll never forget the sound her mother made when we told her what had happened. She saw the body bag being loaded into the ambulance, and she let out the most haunting, heart-broken wail I've ever heard. It was like her whole life was crashing down around her, and a part of her had died with her daughter. I heard from another SAR officer that she killed herself a few months later. She couldn't live with the loss of her daughter.<br><br>* I was teamed up with another SAR officer because we'd received reports of bears in the area. We were looking for a guy who hadn't come home from a climbing trip when he was supposed to, and we ended up having to do some serious climbing to get to where we figured he'd be. We found him trapped in a small crevasse with a broken leg. It was not pleasant. He'd been there for almost two days, and his leg was very obviously infected. We were able to get him into a chopper, and I heard from one of the EMTs that the guy was absolutely inconsolable. He kept talking about how he'd been doing fine, and when he'd gotten to the top, a man had been there. He said the guy had no climbing equipment, and he was wearing a parka and ski pants. He walked up to the guy, and when the guy turned around, he said he had no face, just smooth skin where his eyes and mouth should have been. He said the guy had punched him in the leg, and he'd fallen into the crevasse. I don't know whether that's true, or if it was just some delusion from the pain, but I can't shake the idea that there really was a guy up there.<br><br>* I had one call come in from a spooked pair of campers. They had fallen asleep in their tent, and when they woke up one of their bags was missing. About twenty minutes later, the bag turned up at the door to their tent, but it was empty. The only thing in it was a piece of paper with some GPS coordinates on it, and a sentence that just said 'Come find the kids.' Both the campers were experienced, and they knew that bag couldn't have made it back on its own. They were convinced that someone had taken it, and that the coordinates were some kind of clue to finding their 'missing kids.' We obviously thought this was bullshit, and the guy was just trying to get attention. However, I'm not sure why, but something about it bothered me. I went out with another SAR officer, and we went to the coordinates. We found a cave with what looked like a pair of improvised cots inside. There was absolutely no sign that anyone had been there recently, but both of the cots had dirty diapers on them. I have no idea what that was supposed to be, or who left the coordinates, but it creeps me out to this day.<br><br>* This is the last one, and it's what really made me write this. I was out on a call with a canine again, and we were searching for a guy who hadn't come home from a fishing trip. We'd received reports of bear sightings in the area, and his family was getting worried. We followed the canine into the forest, and after about four hours of walking, we found a trailer. It was one of those tiny house trailers, and it looked like somebody was living there. The canine started barking, and we could hear a woman screaming and crying from inside the trailer. We drew our guns and went in, and we didn't find the guy we was looking for. Instead, we found a woman who was chained inside the trailer. She was emaciated, dirty, and had what looked like scars from cuts or stabbings on her torso. When we asked her who she was, she told us that her name was Rachel, and that she'd been taken from her home almost eleven years ago. If that's true, it's one of the longest cases of domestic captivity I've ever heard of. We got her out of there, and we figured out that the guy we were looking for had been the one keeping her there the whole time. The woman was hysterical, and she kept begging us not to take her back to her 'husband'. We took her to a hospital, and I haven't heard anything about it since. I really hope she gets the help she needs.<br><br>That's it. I wish I had more uplifting stories to tell, but most of my job is just either mundane or depressing. I'm glad I can help people, but a lot of the time I wish I didn't have to see the things I see.<br><br>Edit: For those of you asking, I am an American, and this was in the Pacific Northwest, in the US. I'm not sure which exact area most of these calls came from, as I was fairly new and didn't really know the areas. I also didn't think it would be relevant, as most of these happened at different times and I just compiled the stories for a quick chambers post. I'll try to think back on it and see if I can remember any of the specifics.<br><br>Also, I'm an ex-SAR officer, I don't do this anymore. I started when I was young, and have since moved on to something else. I'm not comfortable giving away exactly where I am or what I do now, but I'm glad I can tell you guys all these stories.