Here’s to unsung heroes who get their jobs done
Published 10:38 pm Tuesday, December 23, 2008
In a week when deliveries are crucial, I’ve been impressed to find cards in my mailbox and newspapers and Christmas packages on my porch. They made it through snow and ice, thanks to intrepid mail and paper carriers and delivery truck drivers.
They’re unsung heroes, all these folks who’ve put themselves in peril to work when others take one look at snow and just stay put. To all those delivery people, grocery checkers, road crews, gas station workers, mall clerks and Santa Clauses, a heartfelt thank you.
We all want holiday mail on time, but some deliveries are matters of life and death.
As snow piled up, Snohomish County Search and Rescue volunteers delivered nurses to hospitals in Everett and Monroe, workers to the SNOPAC 911 dispatch center in south Everett, and help from Providence Hospice and Home Care of Snohomish County to homebound patients in Stanwood and on Camano Island.
“We take for granted that those people are always going to be there. They face the same issues everybody else has getting to their jobs,” said Randy Fey, a volunteer and vice president of the board of Snohomish County Search and Rescue.
Veteran search and rescue volunteers Perry Countryman and Scott Cox spent Monday taking hospice nurse Milli Uzoma to Stanwood and Camano.
“When I got out of the truck, I stepped in the snow and sank to my knees,” said Uzoma, who needed a ride to treat wound-care patients served by hospice. “Perry Countryman walked in front of me so I could walk, he paved the way. Nobody else would have made it through to these patients,” she said.
Without the ride in a four-wheel-drive search and rescue Suburban, Uzoma would have been stuck driving her Mazda Protege. “I would have gone two feet, that would have been it,” she said. Visiting one Stanwood-area patient, Uzoma drew blood for needed tests, then delivered it to Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, sparing the patient a dangerous drive.
“They were all so thankful, they had tears in their eyes that we would make that effort,” she said of the stranded patients.
It’s unusual for search and rescue volunteers to be needed during lowland snowstorms. “I’d say 70 percent of our work is in the backcountry between April and November,” Fey said. Along with hikers and hunters, search and rescue helps in urban areas through its Project Lifesaver, which locates missing people who suffer from dementia.
In all, there are about 250 search and rescue volunteers, said Sgt. Danny Wikstrom of the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. “Of that number, there are about 30 people we really, really rely on,” said Wikstrom, who coordinates the volunteer agency for the sheriff’s office. “We have people who are Boeing workers. One fellow is a carpenter. One is an electrician,” said Wikstrom, adding that Cox and Countryman are “first to step up.”
Wikstrom said the most challenging missions recently were in east Snohomish County. During Saturday night’s near-blizzard, volunteers brought nurses from Gold Bar and Sultan into Valley General Hospital in Monroe, and delivered emergency dispatchers to the SNOPAC center.
“There were power outages, trees across the road, and in the Sultan area, 4- and 5-foot snow drifts. They were out in the worst of it, in whiteout conditions Saturday night,” Fey said.
“It was pretty bad,” said Cox, a search and rescue volunteer for about five years. He said the roughest trip was picking up a Sultan woman for her 911 dispatch job. Cox, who works for Hammer Electric Co. in Snohomish, said his boss understands when he’s needed for rescues. “Some things are more pressing than others,” he said.
What’s pressing today is the Christmas shopping Cox still hadn’t done by Tuesday. He has a good excuse.
The rest of us? We’re blessed to have heroic helpers. Against rugged odds, they’ve made the season bright.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
