Risky rescue
Frigid response leaves woman steaming

by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Oct 22/97) - A Yellowknife woman says her husband could have frozen to death while she spent four hours trying to convince Mounties to search for him and a friend Saturday evening.

But police and fire officials say night searches are risky and often put searchers in just as much peril as those who are lost.

"It really bothers us when someone goes missing, but you can't put your searchers at risk," said RCMP Staff Sgt. Dave Grundy.

"We just want this foolishness changed," countered Leona Callahan, who repeatedly called emergency officials to try and get a search started for her husband.

"It's only through the mercy of the Lord that my husband lived."

Rodney Callahan and Morvan Rowsell spent more than 10 hours shivering in a cabin on Prosperous Lake after their canoe was swamped around noon, while they were fishing.

The pair swam to shore, then walked an hour before finding a cabin about 1.5 kilometres from Tartan Rapids.

They weren't discovered by firefighters until 11:20 p.m. By then, Callahan's feet were badly frostbitten and he remains in hospital. Rowsell was treated for exposure and released.

Emergency officials say night searches are very risky and Saturday's would not have been attempted except that several firefighters have cabins on the lake and know the area.

Deputy fire chief Mike Lowing called the incident "a real, true Northern survival story," but said night searches are considered marginal, even in the summer, because they rarely work and imperil searchers.

Because the fire department still had its boat in the water and equipeed with ice-flotation suits, plus a crew that knew the area, the search was undertaken. Even though they knew the lake, the searchers became disoriented several times, he said.

RCMP authorized the search at about 10 p.m., after the fire department determined the risk was worth taking. Callahan and her relatives were already out on Prosperous Lake by then, searching for the men themselves.

Firefighters searched the other side of the lake and saw a lantern burning in the window of the cabin, which led them to the men. The pair were stabilized and taken to Stanton Regional Hospital for treatment of frostbite to their legs and feet and mild hypothermia.

"The firefighters were great," Callahan said. "We're very thankful for what they did."

Her other concern is finding the owners of the cabin, where the two freezing men started a fire with the legs of a bunk bed.

"We don't know who owns the cabin but we want to find out so we can thank them and pay them for what they used."