By Shari Piel
The Colombian
SKAMANIA COUNTY, Wash. – The Skamania County Search and Rescue team was struck by thieves this weekend just as the team ended the search for two Oregon men who disappeared in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest during a Sasquatch hunt.
The thieves targeted the search and rescue team’s warehouse, cutting through a 10-foot-tall barbed wire fence and making off with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office said.
The list of stolen items includes an automated external defibrillator, generators, customized wilderness medical kits, equipment for first responders needed for technical rope rescues, hypothermia rescue kits, equipment for transporting patients in a litter, and others tools and equipment.
A GoFundMe has been created in hopes of replacing the stolen items.
“This expensive first aid equipment is not just ‘equipment’; it allows us to save lives. Without this, we risk being unable to respond to emergencies such as stranded hikers, river rescues or fallen climbers,” organizer Donna Wells said on the GoFundMe page.
Efforts to replace the stolen equipment have raised nearly $17,000 of the $18,000 goal.
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In the past two months, the Skamania County Search and Rescue Team has been called to seven missions. In this latest effort, which involved more than sixty volunteers from multiple agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard, the team spent three days searching for the two missing men before finding their bodies in a heavily wooded section of the forest.
The two men, aged 50 and 37, were reported missing after failing to return home on Christmas Eve. Authorities believe that exposure to harsh weather conditions and possibly a lack of adequate preparation contributed to their deaths.
Anyone with information about the theft is asked to contact the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office at 509-427-9490 with reference number 24-09035.
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