The provincial government acknowledged has the contributions of a long-time Prince George Search and Rescue volunteer.
Dave Merritt, who first joined the organization 27 years ago, was among six people from across the province who were presented with awards at the annual Public Safety Lifeline Volunteer celebration on Tuesday in Victoria.
"These selfless volunteers dedicate their time and energy to helping people who are struggling through extremely challenging situations," said Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth. "These award winners have gone above and beyond to help strengthen our communities and make B.C. safer."
Receiving the award was "shocking and it's humbling at the same time," Merritt said in an interview. "You don't do it for the recognition, but when you do get recognized, it's pretty amazing."
A passion for the outdoors - he's an area supervisor for B.C. Parks during the day - and a family tradition of service to community prompted Merritt to join PGSAR in 1991. He was the youngest member of the team at the time.
By 1998, he was training up-and-coming volunteers, and over the years has delivered courses and workshops both locally and across the province on the finer points of such endeavours as rope rescue, avalanche rescue and leading ground searches.
"When you're teaching people and they have that ah-ha kind of moment and you know they're going to get it (is rewarding)," Merritt said. "When they're going to go forth and do good work and save people in a time of need."
Merritt has also been involved in hundreds of rescues and other operations over the years, some involving as many as 250 volunteers.
Perhaps the most memorable was the rescue of a caver from Fang Mountain in 2009 after a large boulder fell on him. In all, about 60 people from a handful of groups were deployed along with a helicopter from the Canadian Forces Base in Comox.
"It was a challenging rescue, it took a team effort for sure," Merritt said.
He was also instrumental in the development in PGSAR's long-line program, which allows them to rescue stranded subjects from a helicopter. It was a two-year process to achieve the qualifications needed for PGSAR to carry out that type of rescue, which has been in place for 10 months.
"We've done one operation with long-line but we've been called out seven or eight times," Merritt said. "But if we can avoid using it, we avoid using it, so it works out quite well."
On top of the actual rescues, the commitment involves training during one mid-week evening for about three or four hours and one day each weekend, plus involvement in the provincial committees via conference calls.
"I've never actually tried calculating the amount of hours I put into it," Merritt said. "But I do put in as many as I possibly can and as many as the wife will let me."
Those interested in volunteering can send an email to [email protected]. Intake is held every September.
