I've been a Search and Rescue worker for 9 years. Last night was my last.

I’ve been an SAR worker for about 9 years now, and I’m still pretty young, so I have seen a lot in my time. I’ve had people call me crying because they can’t find their cat, I’ve helped dementia patients find their way home, I’ve found missing children and I’ve found dead bodies. <br><br>I work in a national park with mountains, caves, rivers and forests, so there’s a lot of places people can go missing, accidents can happen, and a lot of ways to die. I’ve seen my fair share of death too; people who have fallen from heights, been bitten or stung, frozen to death in the cold, drowned or a combination of these. And with all that I’ve seen, nothing could prepare me for what happened last night.<br><br>I’m a single mother to a 4 year old girl, and I had just put her to bed and settled in for the night when I got the call. Someone had been missing for a day, and they were starting to call out SARs in case the person hadn’t just left of their own accord. I grabbed my stuff and met at the usual meeting spot. No one was in a good mood. It was cold and we would have to search throughout the night, and it was a kid that was missing. <br><br>That always gets to me. <br><br>Kids are the hardest to find and they’re usually in the worst situations when we find them. <br><br>I met with the rest of the crew and we received the information. <br><br>We found the parents, and they told us that 2 kids (their daughter and her cousin) had been missing since the night before. They were both 12. <br><br>Apparently, the family had been camping together for a few days, and all was well until the night before, when both girls were gone. They said they had been in their tent when they heard one of the girls scream, but when they came out, both were gone. <br><br>I thought that was weird, but I’ve heard of kidnapped before, so I thought that was probably what had happened. Maybe their only daughter had been targeted, and the cousin was taken by mistake, or the kidnapper had targeted the wrong girl and took both. <br><br>We were given a description of the girls and told what they were last wearing. <br><br>One of the girls had bright red hair, and was wearing a yellow rain jacket. The other had long black hair, and was wearing a bright pink rain jacket. <br><br>We set out looking for them right away, but it wasn’t until around 4am that one of the teams found something. <br><br>We were all called to the spot on the radio, and we all went straight there. <br><br>I got there just after the first team, and the scene looked like something straight out of my worst nightmares. <br><br>I saw the girl with the black hair lying on the ground, face up. She was already dead, but I was glad we had found her. I wanted to tell the parents that their daughter was dead, not lost, and I hoped we could find the other girl alive. <br><br>We called out her name into the trees, but there was no reply. <br><br>The girl we had found had high vis jackets covering her, and a sleeping bag over her. Someone had found her, covered her up, and tried to keep her warm. <br><br>We found a hiking pole not too far away, and my training told me that whoever had found the girl had left. <br><br>We didn’t have anywhere to look though. <br><br>I thought about where I would go if I had found a 12 year old dead in the mountains. <br><br>I’d go to get help. Take one of their things to identify the person, and come back to the spot and try and help until help came. <br><br>I saw one of the guys holding a hair tie with some hair attached. <br><br>“Is this what you guys think they came back with?” I asked. <br><br>He nodded. <br><br>I looked at the hair. It was red and not black. <br><br>“Why would they take away the wrong girl’s hair if they were with both?” <br><br>Everything hit me. <br><br>Whereever they went, they left one girl behind. <br><br>They left the black haired girl behind, dead. <br><br>They didn’t just leave her, they tried to keep her warm and covered her up. <br><br>If this person left to go and find help, they would have come back to exactly where they left her, to check up on her. <br><br>If they had the red hair, they would have been looking for the red haired girl. <br><br>And if they left to get help, they would have taken one of the hiking poles.<br><br>I pointed all of this out to the other guys, and we started searching the area again, but this time, we called out the name of the red haired girl instead. <br><br>It wasn’t long before we found her. <br><br>I don’t know how I didn’t see it the first time, but I think I was blinded by the fact that someone could do this. <br><br>The girl was buried into the snow, just off the path. <br><br>She was face down in the snow, but as we got closer and I looked around, I noticed the guy who had ‘found’ her was standing right next to me. <br><br>He had a yellow rain jacket on, and underneath, a bright pink t shirt. <br><br>“Is that the girl’s jacket?” I asked. <br><br>He smiled. <br><br>He looked like he was in his 30s, and was tall with a built build. He had red hair, but it was short. He was wearing a bright yellow rain jacket and bright pink t shirt, as well as hiking pants and boots. He had a big backpack on. He looked like any other guy you’d see on the trails. <br><br>“Thanks for finding my cousin.” He said. <br><br>I didn’t want to panic, because I wanted him to keep talking. <br><br>“How did you find her?” <br><br>He pointed to a small cliff nearby. It wasn’t far at all. <br><br>“They were playing around, and she slipped and fell. I couldn’t get down to her in time. The snow was too slippery.” <br><br>I wasn’t sure I believed him, so I asked him more questions. <br><br>“Why did you take her hair? Why not take something of hers?” <br><br>“I wanted to make sure you found her,” he replied. “I was going to come back for her, but I had to find someone. I knew I had to find someone to help her, I just didn’t know where to go. When I saw you guys, I knew you would help her.” <br><br>I still wasn’t sure I believed him, so I kept pushing. <br><br>I think he started to get agitated at me, but he knew he needed to keep talking. <br><br>“Why did you leave her out in the open? You were down there, you could have just left her in the bushes or a cave or something.”<br><br>“There are no bushes or caves down there, and She was already cold. I didn’t want to leave her in the elements, I wanted to leave her in a place you guys could find her. I knew you guys were looking for her, I just didn’t want you to miss her.” <br><br>That’s when it clicked. <br><br>He hadn’t been looking for help. <br><br>He knew we were out looking for them, so he wanted us to find her. <br><br>I looked around and realised there was no sign of a fight, there was no sign of a fall. <br><br>I called for the guys to come over, and one of them noticed that the girl was moving, ever so slightly. <br><br>“Did you check to see if she was still alive?” I asked the guy. <br><br>“I did, I knew you guys would be looking for her. So I moved her somewhere you could find her.” <br><br>The guys started CPR on the girl, and that’s when I noticed it. <br><br>She was face down in the snow. <br><br>How did they know we were looking for her if they hadn’t left the spot? <br><br>The only reason you would leave a person face down is to suffocate them, and the guy had buried her into the snow, leaving only a small part of her face showing. <br><br>She was alive, but taking her to hospital revealed that she had hypothermia, frost bite and very serious brain damage due to lack of oxygen. <br><br>She’ll be lucky if she ever wakes up. <br><br>The guy turned out to be the girls uncle, and he had been camping with them. He had been trying to get to the black haired girl for a long time. <br><br>When we searched the guys bag, we found a lot of stuff that he had stolen from the girl, including some of her underwear. <br><br>I think he’d been touching himself while he watched her, and he couldn’t cope will having the other girl around all the time. <br><br>He had pushed the black haired girl, killed her, and then hid out until some SARs turned up. He ‘found’ her, tried to keep her warm, got some of her hair and left to get help. <br><br>When we turned up, he went back to where he had left the red haired girl and waited there until we ‘found’ her. <br><br>She was buried in the snow because he didn’t want to waste his time leaving her out in the elements. <br><br>I’m taking a break from SAR, and I think the guys who helped me with the search are too. <br><br>The guy is currently in jail, but has not been charged. <br><br>I hope he gets charged with double murder soon.