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 girl 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 same time, and she'd looked away for a second, gone to point out something to her dad, and when she turned back her daughter was gone. They waited for her to show up for a while, but when she didn't, they called for help. Again, we searched everywhere, and *nothing*. No trace, no signs of struggle, no signs of anything. Just gone. <br><br>Now, I've seen people screw up location and time before. But in both cases, the people who called in the missing persons were absolutely sure about the details, and in both cases they were experienced hikers who knew the area well. I have no idea what happened to those two people, and I probably never will.<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 climber had gone out with his partner, and his partner waited at the base of the route for him to climb up and rig the ropes. He waited for hours, and when his partner didn't show up, he called for help. We went out, searching the route he'd taken, and we found his body at the bottom of a gully. We of course had to get his body down from the cliff, and while we were doing that, we found the reason he'd fallen: his harness had been cut partway through. There was no way he'd done it accidentally; whoever had done it had done it on purpose. The saddest part was the man who'd called us was the climber's husband. He was in absolute tears when we told him what had happened, and we never found out who had done it or why.<br><br>* I rescued an injured man from an area that was almost inaccessible. The only way to get to him was to go over a very rickety bridge, but the bridge actually held my weight. I was surprised, as it looked like it was about to fall apart.<br><br>* One guy was injured, and he was absolutely convinced that the tree next to him was moving, and was going to eat him. He kept crying and begging me not to leave him alone with it, and that the tree was going to take his organs and make him empty. I couldn't figure out why he thought this until I saw that the tree had a hole in the trunk that looked kind of like a mouth. It was just a normal gnarled hole, but it did look a little eerie. However, it didn't explain why he was convinced that the tree was going to eat his organs. I think he was just in a lot of pain and a little delirious, but it was still creepy.<br><br>* One call we got that was really sad involved an older man who'd been out walking alone. He'd been a little unstable lately, and he'd given his family a number of scares by 'wandering off', but this time he apparently didn't come back for over 24 hours. His family called us in a panic, saying that he couldn't possibly have made it that long on his own, and we went out looking for him. The guy didn't have a phone, so it was a bit of a challenge, but we finally found him late that night, at the base of a cliff. He'd apparently fallen down it and died instantly. What bothered me so much about this was that he'd been in contact with someone during the whole time he was gone. He was a veteran, and he had a tablet he used to video call with his grandkids. He'd apparently left his house and walked into the forest, and he spent the entire time he was gone video chatting with his wife and kids. They thought he was back at the car, but he told them he was lost and couldn't find his way back. They were trying to help him find his way back when he fell. They didn't know where he was, but he was on the video call when he fell, and they saw and heard the whole thing. They were in absolute tears when we called them to tell them we'd found him, because they'd seen it happen and there was nothing they could do. <br><br>* A guy was out hiking with his infant daughter, and the bag he was carrying her in somehow slipped off his shoulders and fell down a cliff. We were able to get to the bag before anything happened, but the guy was completely inconsolable. He was almost in panic, and he kept trying to climb down the cliff to get to her, even though we told him we were coming and that she was safe. It was strange, because it hadn't even been that close of a call. He was just absolutely hysterical.<br><br>Okay, I think that's all I've got for now! I'll send more as I think of them.