When a pair of campers became stranded and soaked on a chilly night this past March, two of Michigan’s conservation officers came to their rescue.
Michigan Department of Natural Resources Sgt. Brian Olsen and Officer Ben McAteer responded around 5 a.m. on March 22 to a report that two men were stranded in Dead Stream Swamp, an 11,000-plus-acre wetland in northeastern Missaukee County, just west of Higgins Lake.
Olsen and McAteer hiked into the remote swamp for about an hour when they found the campers, both soaked and chilled from a rain that started the previous evening and turned to snow overnight. Temperatures had dropped to around 20 degrees. One of the men’s inhalers had frozen and he was having trouble breathing.
The DNR officers made a fire to help them thaw out. Two more officers arrived and assisted as the group made their way out of the swampland. The campers were escorted to an ambulance, which transported them for treatment.
While that type of potentially life-threatening situation is not common, it’s exactly why all DNR officers now complete search-and-rescue training when they join the agency.
“Being a Michigan conservation officer is a very challenging but very rewarding job,” said DNR Lt. Jeremy Payne. “It’s very rewarding when someone is having the worst day of their life and we find them and help them in their time of need.”
Since 2012, each of DNR’s approximately 250 conservation officers stationed around the state has received search-and-rescue training, Payne said.
The rationale was that since conservation officers are often the first responders on the scene at emergency situations in remote areas, and because their regular duties give them a familiarity with those areas, they should be among the best-equipped to handle incidents involving missing or distressed persons in those areas.
Their weeklong training takes place at North Higgins Lake State Park in the north-central part of the Lower Peninsula. The new recruits are instructed in basic tracking skills, plus land and water rescue techniques. The schooling culminates with a two-day mock rescue scenario.
DNR conservation officers are tasked with protecting the state’s natural resources including fish and wildlife, forest growth, rivers, lakes and streams. They are fully licensed law enforcement officers who enforce hunting and fishing laws and environmental rules and regulations.
While search-and-rescue operations may not be their primary role, it’s a responsibility DNR takes seriously.
“DNR conservation officers work hard every day to protect Michigan’s natural resources and the millions of visitors who value them. Their work is as much a calling as it is a job,” DNR Director Scott Bowen said in a statement.
Their hard work and training has played a part in several successful rescues. Payne said in September alone, DNR officers took part in five search-and-rescue efforts around the state.
Among the agency’s more recent rescues were:
- A March 25 incident in Alcona County, where conservation officers helped save a man whose boat had capsized on the AuSable River.
- A close call on Independence Day, when a 9-year-old boy was briefly buried alive after sand collapsed on him in the dunes at Silver Lake State Park in Oceana County.
- An Oct. 1 incident in which conservation officers helped locate a man with dementia who had wandered away from his home and into a wooded area in Ogemaw County.
Once new conservation officers complete the search-and-rescue training, they spend 16 weeks doing field work alongside a veteran DNR officer. Payne said this gives them a better understanding of the geographic makeup of the specific region to which they’ve been assigned.
“We’re the experts on these rural environments,” he said.
The agency had previously hired an outside firm to lead the annual search-and-rescue training, but last year DNR’s most experienced officers began leading the training themselves.
Payne said the outside company had been more focused on terrain more common to the U.S. West, including mountainous regions. That isn’t generally a major concern in Michigan, where dense forests and thousands of lakes present the greatest challenges, he said.
“We’re outside most of the time, protecting the natural resources of the state and part of our mission is to protect the public,” Payne said.
mreinhart@detroitnews.com
