Volunteer rescuers on B.C. coast witness hundreds of tragedies, triumphs a year

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About one third of marine emergencies on the west coast of British Columbia are answered by volunteer search and rescue crews – that is about 800 missions each year handled by 1,200 volunteers in 40 B.C. communities.

Members of the auxiliary arm of the Coast Guard, now called the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, are trained to the same standards as regular Canadian Coast Guard crew. What motivates volunteers to haul themselves out of bed in the middle of the night to risk their lives on behalf of other mariners?

David Payne has been a member of a marine search-and-rescue station for two decades, and is based in Ucluelet on the exposed Pacific edge of Vancouver Island. He has taken part in hundreds of rescue operations – far too many that ended in tragedy – often in difficult and risky conditions. A month ago, he made a tough call to abandon a search because high winds threatened to flip the Ucluelet station's 7.3-metre rigid-hull inflatable rescue boat. (The call turned out to be a false alarm.)

"The downside of the job is the bodies we have pulled out of the water. On the upside, it's being able to find people and get them back to safety," he said in an interview.

Mr. Payne recalls one harrowing rescue on a dark December night, when his crew was called out to respond to a report of a boat that had hit the rocks at high speed in Uchucklesaht Inlet, east of Ucluelet.

The person – someone he knew – was trapped in the upside-down boat, and the rescuers had to cut a hole with a chain saw to extract him. It was not a pretty sight inside.

"In hitting the rocks, he was thrown forward into the forepeak [in the bow] and it had opened his face up like someone had taken a can opener across the top of his forehead. He was unrecognizable."

The reward arrived six weeks later, when the survivor knocked on his door to say thank you. "He was almost completely healed. He was smiling. What a good feeling."

Mr. Payne says coastal communities such as his have an ingrained sense of duty to keep a watch on marine traffic. There is little surprise here that fishermen from the community of Ahousaht put themselves in harm's way to rush to the scene of the Leviathan II sinking near Tofino on Oct. 25.

"It's amazing at how little goes unseen. People are observant, because of the environment here. We call it situational awareness."