Alberni rescuer returns to find injured hiker’s lost dog
Later, one of his rescuers, Rory Ford, returned to the scene on his own time and found the man’s dog, Izzy, who had run off during the incident.
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VICTORIA — When the Alberni Valley Rescue Squad pulled an injured hiker off of Mount Arrowsmith on Saturday, they tried their best to rescue his dog, Izzy.
Izzy was having none of it. Spooked by the helicopter hovering overhead, he ignored the dog treats and calls of his would-be rescuers.
Forced to give up, the dog was left on the mountain as the helicopter left, carrying the injured hiker, Carl Barnes, who had fallen three metres.
The rescue squad had sent in a pair of medical teams at about 10 p.m. after Barnes called 911 from the mountain’s Judges Route area, a popular trail that provides a six-kilometre round trip to the summit.
It was dark, so the Alberni rescue squad called for the help of North Shore Rescue, which has the only team in the province trained and equipped for night-time helicopter rescues.
The hiker was transported to hospital in Nanaimo.
But that wasn’t the end of the story for Rory Ford, one of the rescue team members who had been on the mountain that night.
“After being out until quite early in the morning with that rescue, he went back out later in the day,” said Richard Johns, spokesman for the Alberni Valley Rescue Squad. “He’s one of our longest-serving members. He’s got over 25 years — a stand-up person to have on our team.”
Ford told the team that once he had returned to the site of the rescue — at a high enough elevation that winter conditions still persisted — he found Barnes’ original tracks and followed them until he heard Izzy barking. The dog seemed to be “cliffed out” — hesitating in a spot with what it perceived to be no way to go up or descend.
“He spent an hour coaxing the dog along and then eventually he put the dog on his shoulders and made his way down,” the squad said.
The squad said Ford’s rescue was “old school,” since his experience goes back to the time before satellite phones and other rescue aids.
“Bark-only contact,” it said. “No GPS ping.”
Going back to find Izzy “exemplifies who he is,” the squad said.
Barnes has since been reunited with Izzy, and thanked his rescuers in a message on Facebook.
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