My Sister the Rescuer

Shout out to my sister, Tracie, who is doing much good as part of the King County Explorer Search and Rescue. Here's some recent press: "Training day turns into real-life rescue".

Follow up:

A 75-year-old woman wearing slippers disappeared from her home, wandering through a sliding door into a day of record winds and rain on Feb. 4. [...]

The woman eventually was located by searchers from King County's Explorer Search & Rescue (ESAR), who found her sitting under a tree just a few hundred feet from her home.

"She was awake, alert and disoriented and cold," said Tracie Griego, a searcher who discovered the woman while descending a backyard trail with a second team member, Justin Martirosian.

"She asked us some questions and told us about her family," said Griego, who is in her third year with ESAR; Martirosian is in his first year. Griego manages a West Seattle computer store when she's not looking for people. Martirosian is a high-school student from Covington. [...]

The ESAR teams were paged about 1:30 p.m., said Griego, and they soon arrived in the neighborhood and launched search procedures they had practiced.

"We found her within an hour," she added. "The neighbors were gracious enough to allow us through their property. The neighborhood was very helpful."

The woman was gone a little more than five hours from the time of the first call.

"It was really good to see a happy ending," Griego said. "She had one of the neighbor's dogs keeping her company."