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Debbi Maez of Emergency Management and Response (S-8) and a volunteer with the Los Alamos Civil Defense Search and Rescue Agency's Mountain Canine Corp poses with Kayla, a 21-month-old black Labrador. Although Kayla is one of the Mountain Canine Corps' more recently certified dogs, she and Maez have been guest speakers at several United Way presentations this year. Photo courtesy of CRO

Los Alamos Civil Defense Search & Rescue works as a team

"We're all volunteers, and we all work pretty much 24/7," said Debbi Maez, speaking about the Mountain Canine Corps, one of the five teams comprising the Los Alamos Civil Defense Search and Rescue Agency, a United Way-affiliated agency that has been participating in searches for more than 40 years. "The dog unit is just one of five teams."

Maez, a volunteer with the Mountain Canine Corp, is an emergency manager for Emergency Management & Response (S-8). The Corp has 16 certified dogs, about 40 human team members and 12 dogs currently in training that aren't certified yet.

The team, which is always busy, participated in four searches in one weekend last month, all of which resulted in successfully finding people who became lost in the area.

"One person in particular was hiking on an established trail but went through a series of forks in the trail and became lost as it got later and darker," Maez said. "That person was fortunate to be located by our team because the temperature at night has been cold enough that the individual might not have survived."

The dog unit has three subcategories: the tracking and trailing dogs that find scents on the ground, the air scent dogs that recognize generic human scents in an area and the cadaver dogs that find cadavers, Maez explained.

The cadaver work is some times relegated to the older dogs because they can work in a smaller, more defined areas and they don't get as worn out as the younger dogs who can spend days in the field, continued Maez.

"I really enjoy doing these types of things," she said. "However, I like to stress as much as I can, that all the efforts of the search teams up here are a combined effort by many, many individuals who all have helping people in common. And through teaming with each other, it's a great system."

The Los Alamos Civil Defense Search & Rescue agency's other four teams are the Los Alamos Fire Brigade, the Los Alamos Amateur Radio Club, the Civil Air Patrol and the Los Alamos Ski Patrol.

"The Fire Brigade's biggest role is that its members provide medical support for all of the athletic events held in Los Alamos County, so they're always present at the bike races, the running events and the football games," said Maez.

She said members of the Los Alamos Amateur Radio Club are vital during search and rescue and other emergencies because they can provide communications over long distances and have a lot more resources than the dog unit. "They did some exceptional work during the Cerro Grande Fire," she noted.

The Civil Air Patrol also assists with communications, explained Maez, because they can travel above a search area, and they also can help transport the dogs to an area much more quickly than a car.

During the summer, the Los Alamos Ski Patrol assists in ground support, and in the winter, they are vital because they're more familiar with the [local] mountainous area than most people.

"When the snow is too deep, the dogs just wear themselves out," Maez said. "The ski patrol gets out there in their snow shoes and skis, and they can lead the way."

Maez said search-and-rescue is a way of life for those involved on the various teams, even the furry members.

"Duke, my 12-year-old Brittany Spaniel, recently retired. He has been involved in search-and-rescue for about as many years, but he still likes going to the demos. And so we hide things in our yard for him to find," she said. "It's my way of keeping him involved. It's emotionally hard to retire a search dog. They want to keep working, but the physical work is just too difficult for the older dogs."

-- Vanessa De La Cruz

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