Doug Mepham recalls a time when a crew he trained with was called out to rescue some people floating on paddleboards.
When they got to the scene, crew members found seven people clinging to three paddleboards, including a mother and her four children, Mepham said.
“Our crew follows its training, collects them all. We get the paddleboarders in, the kids are crying, we treat the hypothermia,” he said.
And it doesn’t end there. On the way back their crew finds a man who had been knocked off of his jetski and found unconscious, he was saved too.
“In 106 minutes, they saved eight lives,” Mepham said.
Those days are chaotic, but they make it all worth it, he said.
Mepham is a volunteer for GAMRU South Shore Search and Rescue, which is both a unit of the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary and an Ontario not-for-profit organization.
Volunteers aim to save lives and promote safety on the water, particularly Lake Ontario.
Although they volunteer for the same organization, doing the same intense, time-sensitive work, Mephan and James Walker aren’t necessarily cut from the same cloth.
Walker, 24, owns a landscaping business and helps out at his family’s business, Walker’s Country Market, when he is not volunteering.
Mepham, 75, started volunteering with his first marine rescue outfit when he was 49. With a background in journalism and public relations, it was his boating experiencing growing up that drew him to volunteer.
Mepham has been with the rescue organization for more than 25 years and Walker is completing his first year.
“We get people from virtually all walks of life. Our membership looks like the communities we service,” Mepham told The Lake Report.
Every volunteer brings a different set of skills to help address any kind of emergency.
“With every crew having a different role, each person has a different job. They bring all kinds of different experiences and skills,” Walker said.
And those varied skill sets are vital, given that the crew has to be ready for just about anything.
Volunteers go through a wide variety of training that are administered through phases, one of the most important being scenarios, Mepham said.
“As adventurous as our trainers are, there’s still things we haven’t thought of that you encounter out there. So the training makes people as flexible as they can. There’s no fixed answer for everything,” he said.
Training this extensive is no small time commitment either, which is something Walker understood when he applied.
“We go about once a week to do the in-class training and in the summertime you’re expected to do one night a week with your designated crew and one weekend per month,” he said.
When looking for volunteers, the only real requirement is that the individual be over 18 and willing and able to commit the appropriate amount of time, Mepham said.
“It can be beastly hot, it can be terribly cold, it can be rough, it can be wet. Being physically ready for that and a willingness to learn are the criteria,” he said.
The organization trained a volunteer who stepped on a boat for the very first time during her April training session.
“She’s become a real contributor,” Mepham said.
Search and rescue is not for everyone and Mepham understands that, but there are moments that make it more than worth it for the right volunteers.
GAMRU South Shore Search & Rescue has experienced an unusual shortage of volunteers and is in need of new helping hands.
“We’re looking for a minimum of 10 new members to rebuild a fleet,” Mepham said.
These new volunteers would be looking at getting into the water next April, with in-class training beginning in January.
“The sooner they get on the boat, the better,” he said.
Those interested can reach out to membership director David Rohr at david.rohr@gamru.ca.
