In General Conference, with regularity, members of the of the Church of Jesus Christ are reminded by leaders about the important function of search and rescue. The latest is the poignant appeal in the April 2025 Conference by Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who recounted the story of the Martin and Willy Handcart Companies who crossed the plains in late in the year of 1856, pulling their belongings in wooden handcarts because they could not afford larger covered wagons pulled by oxen or horses.
Elder Cook rightfully points out that most of the handcart pioneers successfully completed the handcart journey, but one in five of the members of these two companies, about 200 people, perished due to the onset of an early and particularly harsh winter. Many versions of this story echo in the Church’s oral tradition, including stories of survivors, rescuers, and those who want to reexamine history and find fault. There is a movie version, [1] and a very inspiring version written by the great American novelist, historian, and environmentalist Wallace Stegner, who was not a member of the Church. Stegner wrote "That I do not accept the faith that possessed them does not mean I doubt their frequent devotion and heroism in its service…Especially their women. Their women were incredible." [2]
The telling and retelling of this story have emphasized and even distorted some of the facts. In my participation in search and rescue on the Wasatch Front of Utah, and in working with search and rescue teams all over the world, I know that there are always different versions from the many perspectives of any rescue. Rather than focus on what really happened, perhaps the most important question is, “Why are stories of search and rescue something the Lord wants us to hear in every generation?”
I am not qualified to know the Lord’s motives. But I do know that having a front row seat to search and rescue for the last 25 years has moved me more than any sermon I have ever heard because I have seen the hearts and the hands of those who reach out to others on the worst day of their lives. It is why I argue that search and rescue is beyond a metaphor, it is an essential practice of the self-sustaining community we call the Church of Jesus Christ. Elder Cook reminded us again, “Do not underestimate the importance of doing what we can to rescue others from physical and especially spiritual challenges.” [3]
Search and rescue are about restoring hope
On an October night, the warm before the storm deceived an older cyclist into a solo mountain bike ride to a high point. He planned to be gone for two hours up familiar trails, so he only took water and left extra cloths and his cell phone at home. But after five hours, he had not returned. Frantic, his wife called search and rescue. As luck would have it, I was first to arrive on the scene and was confronted by a scared woman who demanded that I move quickly up the trail with my search dog and find her husband. I told her that I had been assigned to set up a landing zone for the helicopters and that within 20 minutes we would have 50 plus searchers, two helicopters, and a group of skilled motorcycle riders who would quickly cover the trails. I told her, “We will all do everything we can to bring him home tonight.”
About 2 AM the man was found safe. My teammate who found him told me his bike had broken down. He had tried to walk out in the dark. His shoes were for cycling and not hiking, and so he was moving slowly when the cold first winds of winter hit. As he became cold, he made a bad decision to try a short cut. Then he lost the trail and found himself in a gully, on the moonless night, not knowing which way to go. My colleague on the “single track” motorcycle team said they found him by riding up the trail. Stopping. Turning their engines off. And calling his name. Then listening. It turns out he was just a hundred feet off the trail in the dark. The man was warmed, assessed for medical issues, fed calories, given a headlamp and walked down the trail. As the twinkling lights of the city came into view, he began to weep. “What’s wrong?” the worried SAR colleagues asked? The secondhand quote was something like this:
“I was in the dark. Cold. Scared. Then I heard someone call me by my name. A stranger. You called me, warmed me, gave me food and comfort. Then you walked with me and led me to the light. This beautiful light.”
This man had not just lost the path, he had lost hope. When hope was restored, it was overwhelming. In my research on lost person behavior where I interviewed and studied over 120 people who had survived being lost in the wilderness, I found without exception, when hope was restored, they had a spiritual experience. Some used words like conversion or miracle. Others don’t have a religious vocabulary but say things like, “I don’t believe in God, but I felt his love.” [4]
It's hard to tell who is lost
When we are called to look for a single person, we realize that every search and every rescue has multiple victims whose lives will be shaped by the events they are living. Years ago, I was asked by a small rural county to bring my search dog to help look for a missing eight-year-old boy high in the mountains. The boy, who came from a fatherless family, had been invited by his bishop to attend a campout at about ten thousand feet. In the evening the boys in the group took a bucket and hiked a few hundred yards to a snowbank, where they made snowballs to attack the camp. After the play, when they gathered around the campfire for marshmallows, they realized that the eight-year-old boy was not there. It was quickly determined that he was last seen at the snowbank. The search began there. After an hour, the bishop called the sheriff who called the search and rescue team, who asked me and many others like me to assist. The bishop also made the dreaded call to the mother and arranged for her to be brought to the camp. It would get below freezing that night, and the young boy did not even have a jacket.
When I arrived in the very early hours of the morning, I was assigned to search several miles from the snowbank with the bishop who insisted on searching, even though he was exhausted from being up all night. After three or four hours, my radio cracked with a voice asking us all to “return to base… the boy had been found safe.” The bishop heard the radio traffic but not what was said. When I told him the boy was unharmed, he instantly fell to his knees in thanks. I have rarely witnessed such a sacred prayer of gratitude.
Upon returning to camp, I met the boy’s mom who told me her son’s story. “He got turned around at the snowbank and went back the wrong direction. He told me he walked for a while until it was dark, calling for help. In the shadows of the setting sun, he sat down on what appeared to be a big lump in the meadow. He said he remembered the lesson from church on prayer, so he prayed. But nothing happened. He prayed five times, each time in a louder voice asking to be rescued. But nothing happened. It was dark and getting cold, and he was disappointed with the Lord. He realized that he was sitting on a bale of hay in the middle of a cold meadow, and that the hay was warm from being in the sun all day. So, he pulled the bale of hay apart and crawled into the warm bundle and fell asleep.”
He slept warn and comfortably until the hungry horse of the hunters who had placed the hay bale in the meadow arrived the next morning at about 9:30 AM. They were surprised to find a young boy sleeping in their feeding station.
The lessons of this boy’s lost were not just for him. His bishop, his mother, his ward members, the searchers, the sheriff’s deputies, and I were all impacted by his fumbling faith and final realization that his prayer was answered before he asked.
Rescuers are not always appreciated, but always rewarded
There have been a few times when, after a difficult rescue, we face grieving family and friends who want to roll back the clock and blame someone, even us, for the death or injury of their loved one. On a few occasions, the anger has resulted in threats of rescuers or public criticism. While we are constantly using feedback to improve, in most cases we receive an outpouring of appreciation.
One summer’s evening, our team responded to a river crossing where a group of young men had been jumping from a bridge. One young man, who had recently returned from his mission in the Pacific Islands where he had served his family’s ancestors, jumped off the bridge and did not surface. His panicked friends called 9-11 and rescuers were immediately dispatched, but after several hours of searching, hope was lost. Meanwhile his family and ward members had gathered at the water’s edge, watching, praying and crying. When the body was finally found and brought to the surface, a weak voice began to sing, and others quickly joined in. Through their tears they sang in their native language a song of gratitude, in harmony. I was not there but saw a video of the occasion and was deeply moved. Later the brother of the young man called me and told me that they were singing in gratitude for this man’s life, but also for the rescuers who were deep in the dangerous waters trying to find their brother and son.
It is scenes like this that make it easy to go when paged after a long day at work, or during a family gathering. It is never convenient, almost always difficult, but I always get more than I give. Two years ago, on a cold winter day, our team was called to look for a missing man who had left a suicide note. His car had been found three days earlier near a lake, and hundreds of people had already search for him. My dog and I were assigned to follow the lake shore north and avoid the area near his car because it had already been extensively searched. As soon as we left the parking lot, my dog’s nose went up, indicating that he had found a scent. In an almost hypnotic state, he crossed a busy road, climbed over a barrier and into the space where searchers had been. Witnessing this, I was warned by the search manager on the radio to stay in my assigned area. But the higher law with search dogs is “trust your dog.”
It took about ten minutes for him to find the body. In training, we use cadaver scent and teach the dog to bark when they have pinpointed the source. But in this case, he made the find and then came back and almost reverently lead me to a sacred space where the young man had ended his life.
After calling in coordinates and waiting to be released by detectives, we walked slowly back to the parking lot where the search began. I was proud of my dog, but I could tell he was stressed. He did not want a cheese reward; he just wanted my affection. What came next shows just how divine a dog can be. After making our report again to the incident command, I tried to coax him back to my truck. He had other ideas. He crossed the parking lot and the police barrier and stepped into a small gathering of people I learned were the family members of the man we had found. He then presented himself to a young woman, a sister, who saw the dog through her tears and kneeled and embraced him. He licked the tears off her face, then moved to the next family member, and the next.
Bound together in their grief, the dog helped me begin a healing conversation with them, but not just for them. Between 20 and 30 percent of all search and rescue workers suffer from PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) and like most first responders, almost all of us have experienced stress injuries associated with our work. [5] PTSD is like a tiger in the trees. It leaves signs, but you never know if or when it will pounce. I do not know how to heal from the kinds of problems most people will never see, but I do know that taking that journey with others is easier, especially when your fellow travelers are the ones who lost the loved one. They need support, but they know how to give support as well.
We are all rescuers
This year I was a speaker at the ICESAR Conference in Iceland where search and rescue teams from all over the world gather every two years, when I was approached by a man from the Vestman Islands off the west coast of Iceland. He asked, “Are you a practicing Mormon?”
“Yes,” I responded. I expected to be asked if I would attend the social events in the bar. But my host said something surprising.
“Please tell the members of your Church ‘thank-you,’” he said.
“Why?”
“Your Church contributed a sum of money to buy water activated GPS beacons for the crews of all our rescue boats.”
This is significant because it is not uncommon for a member of the deck crew of a rescue lifeboat to be washed off the deck in high seas. If the team loses sight of the crew member, a slow death from hypothermia is possible, even though they are wearing a rescue grade dry suit. Apparently, the church funded a request to get water-activated rescue beacons for the rescuers on the coastal rescue lifeboats. This means if a volunteer falls overboard, the water will turn on a GPS alarm and their location will instantly appear on the radar screen. The beacons are already credited with making rescue boat crews safer on heavy seas. When I heard this, I tracked down the missionary couple in Heber City who had helped make this connection and told them of the potential lifesaving impact of this relatively small contribution.
Anyone who has contributed to the Church has funded this and a thousand other rescue devices. But those are not the most important rescues. Elder Cook reminds us, “‘As we turn to Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, He rescues us from the storms of life through His Atonement.’ [6] In the end, search and rescue is more than a metaphor because it is why most of us are here. Many of my search and rescue teammates experienced being lost before they became rescuers. My lost was not in the wilderness, but in an apartment my freshman year in college when an almost forgotten home teacher from my parent’s old ward made a surprise visit. After overselling him on how well I was doing in school, with my parents having just moved overseas and being cut off from friends after a move, he interrupted my certainty and said, “Scott. It’s not working, is it?” He saw right though me. He saw that at 18 years old, I was not ready to be living alone. He saw that I was standing at an intersection and looking down a road that would take me places I should not go. Then he said, “We have an extra bedroom in our house. You can live with our family until you work things out.” I was rescued before I even had admitted I was lost.
Sometimes people refer to search and rescue or other first responders as “heroes.” But Sister Tamara Runia in this year’s April Conference reminded that we all function as heroes when she said, “If you saw someone who is drowning, wouldn’t you reach out to rescue them? Can you imagine your Savior rejecting your outstretched hand? I imagine our Savior diving into the water and descending below all things to lift us up so we can take a fresh breath.” [7]
My research on lost person behavior suggests that small steps in the wrong direction can have big consequences when someone is becoming lost. As missteps compound, people go deeper into the wilderness and further from home. They become accustomed to the darkness and sometimes do not want to come home. We all help each other stay in the light and on paths of righteousness. But reaching into the troubled waters or the dark wilderness to search for and rescue someone, that is a sacred act, and a deep privilege.
NOTES:
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2509298/ --- [Back to manuscript].
[2] @inproceedings {Stegner1964TheGO,
title= {The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail},
author= {Wallace Earle Stegner},
year= {1964},
URL={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:162234882}
[Back to manuscript].
[3] https://www.thechurchnews.com/general-conference/2025/04/05/elder-quentin-cook-april-2025-general-conference-jesus-atonement-rescue/ --- [Back to manuscript].
[4] Hammond, S.C. (2014) Lessons of the Lost: Finding Hope and Resilience in Work, Life, and the Wilderness. iUniverse, Bloomington, IN. [Back to manuscript].
[5] https://institutesofhealth.org/ptsd-in-first-responders/ --- [Back to manuscript].
[6] https://www.thechurchnews.com/general-conference/2025/04/05/elder-quentin-cook-april-2025-general-conference-jesus-atonement-rescue/ --- [Back to manuscript].
[7] https://www.ksl.com/article/51286313/sunday-morning-session-summaries-from-latter-day-saint-general-conference --- [Back to manuscript].
Full Citation for this Article: Hammond, Scott C. (2025) "The Sacred Act of Search and Rescue," SquareTwo, Vol. 18 No. 1 (Spring 2025), http://squaretwo.org/Sq2ArticleHammondSearchAndRescue.html, accessed <give access date>.
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