Just like Batman gets summoned with the bat signal, a group of residents know they can be called upon at any time to save the day. But rather than fighting villains, the 32 volunteers that make up the San Benito County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue (SAR) team fight fires, find missing people, help local law enforcement in collecting evidence at crime scenes, and assist in evacuations.
Most recently, 14 members were called upon to help search for a missing hunter on Aug. 9. Capt. Eric Taylor with the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office said the team is invaluable because at any given time, law enforcement has a small patrol staff working. Two patrol deputies were on the clock when the call came in about the missing hunter.
“The male was later located in Merced County by the CHP helicopter,” Taylor said. “It was the quick response and search from our team that narrowed the search area quickly.”
Not only does the SAR team provide more hands and expertise to the Sheriff’s Office, it’s also an all-volunteer team that’s self-funded and maintains its own equipment. SAR President Steve Dunlava said it costs each member about $1,500 to purchase the safety equipment required for the job.
“Their net cost to the community is nearly zero, yet we could not exist without them. Consider a donation to this amazing group of people,” Taylor said.
The multi-skilled SAR team was also among the first responders dispatched to the Coyote Fire in Panoche Valley on July 15, which burned 1,508 acres in three days. The 13 SAR members sent to the fire assisted with evacuation efforts.
Assisting with fires is nothing out of the ordinary, as a squad of the search and rescue team also spent six days assisting with the November 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County, which burned 153,336 acres and killed 85 people.
“They were a huge force at the fires in Paradise,” Taylor said. “Our team went on an extended deployment, fully self-contained, and quickly became the talk of the town. Our teams’ expertise with Jeeps, quads and ground searching had most teams up in Paradise asking for the ‘San Benito team.’”
No SAR team was dispatched to assist with local wildfire fighting efforts as of Aug. 26.
What makes the team so versatile is the wide experience of its membership, made up of volunteer firefighters, veterans, nurses and others with doctorates in various subjects. Those with special skills lead informal weekly training sessions in rope, first aid, radio operation, GPS and bandaging.
The main training session occurs once a month, in which the team is tasked with finding a hidden dummy on the Juan De Anza Trail. After finding the dummy through clues, the group must treat it for any injuries—broken bones or bleeding—it sustained.
Dunlava, a 74-year-old military veteran, has led the search and rescue team for the last two years. He is one of 15 certified trackers on the team, and said that every few years they have a professional tracker from outside the country do a two- or three-day training session.
Not short on stories, Dunlava said though SAR has responded to several calls over the years to Hollister Hills and Pinnacles National Park, the one he remembers the most was when the team was dispatched to Lewis Creek near the south county line, to locate a man who had been lost for three days and two nights. The rugged terrain made searching the area a challenge.
“He had actually given up, thinking that nobody would ever find him out there,” Dunlava said. “We found him on the second day of the search.”
Dunlava said they took the man up the mountainside about 900 feet to get to the helicopter that took him to safety.
As much as Dunlava likes to talk about the successful missions in his seven years with the team, he said tragic endings from suicides or accidents are also part of the job. Among the most disturbing cases he recalls was finding the body of a base jumper whose parachute did not open.
“We don’t like it, but that happens fairly often,” Dunlava said about the tragedies the team deals with.
Given the popularity of hiking, off-roading and hunting in rugged and unforgiving terrain, Taylor said the SAR team should give residents peace of mind if somebody becomes lost or injured.
“We have a group of caring, dedicated professionals always at the ready,” Taylor said.
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