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Kyle James, field team lead for Haywood Search and Rescue, carefully crosses a tributary of the West Fork Pigeon River. Nancy East photo
It was the fall of 2019, and Bill Zimmerman had just hopped in a truck with other members of the Haywood County Wilderness Search and Rescue Team in response to one of the 21 deployments the crew handled that year.
“Somebody goes, ‘We don’t even have a gas card. We don’t even have money to put into the truck to get up to the mountain,’” Zimmerman recalled.
It was a crystallizing moment for Zimmerman, who had for some time been toying with the idea of starting up an organization dedicated to funding the SAR team. That day served as the catalyst that spurred him to action, and now Zimmerman is president of the newly formed nonprofit WNC Wilderness Safety Fund.