By Gregory Thomas
1.
The email about a man who drowned while boating on Lake Tahoe arrived in August, when Keith Cormican was in the Canadian Rockies searching for another drowning victim. A young man was missing somewhere in Alberta’s Lake Minnewanka, where the glacial water is so cold that swimmers wear wetsuits even in summer.
By now, Cormican is used to pleading messages from desperate strangers. Over the past seven years, he has become one of the nation’s top specialists in a gruesome yet critical task: locating and retrieving lost bodies in lakes or rivers.
A stout Midwesterner with a round face, gray mustache and glacier blue eyes, Cormican is not part of a government agency no badge, no uniform. The 61-year-old makes a living running a scuba diving shop in Wisconsin. But he has devoted much of the past 25 years to his macabre avocation, towing his custom-outfitted search boat around the country and spending long days motoring across lakes in pursuit of those no
Laney Griffo | Special to The Union
The various Search and Rescue teams around the Lake Tahoe Basin are preparing for what they expect to be a busy season.
Washoe County Search and Rescue president Brian Block said despite COVID-19, they’ve been able to prepare as normal with the exception of the avalanche classroom training being held online. They have about 30 volunteers with two full-time workers. They are assisted by the special vehicle unit, the WOOF team and Hasty Team, which is a highly trained unit specializing in backcountry, dive, swiftwater, helicopter hoist and technical rope rescue.
They have started the field portion of the training at Galena, where they’ve been following COVID guidelines.
Washoe County Search and Rescue trains for the season.
This week is Backcountry Awareness Week and with snow on the ground, the different Search and Rescue teams around the Lake Tahoe Basin are preparing for what they expect to be a busy season.
Washoe County Search and Rescue president Brian Block said despite COVID, they’ve been able to prepare as normal with the exception of the avalanche classroom training being held online. They have about 30 volunteers with two full-timers. They are assisted by the special vehicle unit, the WOOF team and Hasty Team, which is a highly trained unit specializing in backcountry, dive, swiftwater, helicopter hoist and technical rope rescue.