Bill Would Help Support Search & Rescue Volunteers In Colorado
DENVER (CBS4)- Search and rescue volunteers receive 3,800 calls each year in Colorado. A number that is expected to rise with Colorado's population.
On Thursday, Colorado Senate Bill SB20-130 unanimously passed out of the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, which would commission a study to learn how to better support these important volunteers.
"These volunteers are who are saving lives in our back country along with the deputies and other emergency providers," said Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin.
He relies on a team of Search and rescue volunteers to respond to calls for help.
"These people are showing up at someone's most critical point in their life. That could be severe injury, that could be death, that could be someone who has been traumatized in our back country for two or three days and these people are working with these people to try to make their life better," he said.
Counties have a limited budget to support search and rescue volunteers.
Right now, the volunteers make up the difference out of their own pockets.
"A lot of it is personal equipment, a lot of the time these guys spend thousands of dollars themselves just to get into the field and then to maintain that equipment is just as important," said Schroetlin.
"Think about how much the volunteers are spending to do this? Can we relieve that burden a little bit? Can we make it so that it is not so hard on them, on their families to allow them to provide this really vital service?" said Jeff Sparhawk, President of the Colorado Search & Rescue Organization.
He wants to find a sustainable future for Search & Rescue in Colorado.
'What does it mean to fail at search and rescue? We don't know. We don't know what that even looks like, it's never happened. We want to solve this, we want to create a sustainable system," he said.
SB20-130 still has a long road ahead, heading now to the Appropriations Committee before being voted on by the State Senate on its way to the State House.
LINK: SB20-130