Help From Above
An Expedition from ‘Rescued’ to ‘Rescuer’
Story by BRINNON KUMMER
On a clear day in the summer of 2011, somewhere around 10,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, Joe Edmark found himself in a situation that competed with the cruelest of ironies.
Edmark and a friend, Laura Potash, were in the latter half of a two-day expedition on the Pacific Northwest’s crown jewel, Mount Rainier. This was a mountain he had become familiar enough with to consider it a dear friend.
Everything was going as planned, and the pair were making great time. They had taken a less common route along the Kautz glacier, and were working their way down a large patch of snow and ice known as “The Turtle.” Edmark was glissading (sitting and sliding using an ice axe to control speed) down a steep section, and came to a stop when he realized something was wrong.
“I went to stand up and my foot was flopping. I never felt a pop,” Edmark said.
He didn’t remember hitting anything, he just knew that he couldn’t walk, and that this was not the place to be stranded.
Just a few weeks prior, Edmark had joined Everett Mountain Rescue and had been working towards becoming an EMT with Snohomish County Search and Rescue, or SAR. He said the irony of the situation was worse than any pain.
Flash forward to today, the freshly turned 30-year-old rescue technician tells the story with a smile. He chuckles and pulls his hat down over his face, an accessory that he is rarely seen without.
He remembers shimmying 100 yards to a flatter part of the mountain, and splinting his leg using an ice axe and some straps. He activated his locator beacon and settled in, knowing that help was hours away.
For 19 hours, Edmark was carried down the mountain by a team of rescue volunteers. They worked through the night, his only memory being a blur of headlamps and muffled voices. He was guided across crevasses, wheeled through rocky sections and then skied down to Paradise, the primary starting point for most expeditions on Mount Rainier.
He was then transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he underwent surgery to install a rod down his leg to fix his broken tibia and fibula bones. Within four months, he was back on the mountains. Shortly after that, he broke his leg again in a motorcycle accident, but was back at it again following recovery.
Nothing could keep him away. A home away from home, as he put it.
The years have helped bury the irony, and Edmark appreciates holding a perspective that many of his fellow volunteers don’t have.
“Empathy is ingrained in me because I experienced being on the other side,” he said. “I don’t recommend breaking your leg, but it was a unique opportunity.”
The wild has always called to Edmark. As a boy, he remembers his days at a cabin outside of Leavenworth, hiking in the Enchantments and planting the seeds of a lifelong love for the outdoors. As he grew older, he discovered another interest: helping people.
“I’d always been interested in a life of service,” Edmark said. “I could attribute that to my parents and their religious beliefs and what they were doing for their church.”
He began to take EMT courses and soon learned how he could combine these two passions into a reality. He was nearly finished with his schooling when he reached an unexpected, yet wonderful, speed bump: a baby boy named Sam, who was born when Edmark was 20 years old.
Edmark chose to set aside medicine and the outdoors for a while to work full-time and provide for his son. In 2010, his employer shut down and Edmark was unemployed, but with Sam now in school, he was able to spend more time outside. His days became filled with climbing Washington’s highest peaks, working ski patrol at Snoqualmie Pass and setting his sights back on how he could help others.
“I had all this time, so I took a wilderness EMT course,” Joe said. “It was in the mountains in Leavenworth and you were there on site for a month, it was really cool.”
He remembers doing mock rescues in the middle of the night, sleeping beneath the jagged peaks of the Stuart Range and seeing the reflection of the stars in the alpine lakes of the Enchantments.
He knew this was exactly where he wanted to be.
He finished the course and began searching for accreditation, a necessary yet difficult-to-earn status for any aspiring EMT. After learning about local mountain rescue teams from a friend and was immediately interested. He was warned that the selection process was tough, but he applied anyway and soon he was accredited as a volunteer EMT at Everett Mountain Rescue and Snohomish County SAR after that.
He got a new full-time job at a commercial bakery in Lynnwood, and whenever he wasn’t working, he was on duty. He went on countless ground missions that could take him anywhere in the 49,000 acres of forest and 124 miles of trails that make up the central Cascades.
The number of hikers in the Cascades has more than doubled in the last 10 years, according to an article posted by The Seattle Times. More hikers on the trails equates to more injuries, making the need for SAR volunteers greater than ever.
A study conducted by the University of Washington School of Medicine found that more than 50 percent of hiking injuries are sprains, fractures and dislocations, generally in the ankles or legs. These are the most common calls the SAR team receives, he said.
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon and Edmark is on duty. He is sitting at home when he receives a rescue notification on his phone. Once a full team has responded to the notification, Edmark springs into action.
On-duty volunteers are required to be within 20 minutes from the base, so the team is quick to arrive. He gears up and prepares the rescue trucks with the necessary equipment, while others pull up topographical maps of the area and plot out the fastest way to get to the patient. They work like a well-oiled machine, and within minutes are en route to the trail.
Once there, Edmark and his team ascend to the patient’s location and assess the situation. They will then dress or splint the wound, put them into a large, one-wheeled cart known as a litter, and then carefully take them back down to the trailhead where they decide whether the patient needs immediate medical attention, or if they can wait for someone to come pick them up.
This was Edmark’s standard mission for years, but there was one rescue that would change his life in the most peculiar way.
He was responding to a call that at first seemed like any other; a kid who needed help getting down the Mount Dickerman trail. He arrived and began to head up the mountain when he encountered another SAR member, Dietrich, who was coming back down.
Dietrich said that he wasn’t feeling well, and needed to rest at the trailhead for a moment. Normally, Edmark would’ve wished the man well and continued up the trail but that day he chose to make sure Dietrich made it back.
Without Edmark’s help, he never would have.
A few minutes later, Dietrich collapsed face first onto the ground. Edmark rolled him over and checked his pulse. He was in cardiac arrest. He radioed for help and began to perform CPR.
Nothing.
A team finally arrived with a defibrillator and administered a shock.
Still nothing.
They delivered a second shock, and finally began to see electrical activity again in his heart. Members of Dietrich’s team quickly carted him down the trail and flew him to the nearest hospital where he would undergo heart surgery and walk out three days later.
Edmark was presented with “Lifesaving Awards” for his actions from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office as well as from fellow volunteer associations. They’re awards he rarely shows or speaks of, hidden away in his bedroom.
“I don’t do it for the glory,” Edmark said. “Each rescue I’ve been on made a difference in someone’s life, and it’s always a team effort. No one stands alone.”
Danny Wikstrom, a former SAR sergeant, has worked in the service for 40 years and was present the day of the incident. He has worked with countless brave volunteers, but Edmark’s actions that day stood out to him.
“I saw Joe in action that night,” Wikstrom said. “Calm, capable, skilled, caring and driven to help a man in desperate need. Joe Edmark stands among the very best of the best.”
That day brought another unexpected change in Edmark’s life. A fellow SAR member, Cassie Lowry, was also on the scene that day. The two bonded over the trauma of the experience, and a year later they were married. They went on a mountaineering road trip across America, took engagement pictures atop the Grand Teton in Wyoming and have worked together on numerous rescues.
Edmark continued with standard ground missions, but he always felt that there was more he could do. It was in 2013 that he set his sights on a new goal.
Snohomish County SAR is also home to a special division known as the Helicopter Rescue Team, the proud owners of a large Vietnam-era “huey” capable of landing in rugged terrain, dropping in EMTs and speedy evacuations for more serious injuries. Open positions are rare and only the best get certified and approved, and Edmark wanted in. In 2014, a senior member gave up his spot, and Joe didn’t hesitate. He passed all the necessary tests and became an official rescue technician on the helicopter team.
His new position was a dream come true, but not without a catch. Calls that require the air team are less common than other missions, but he must always be available in case the call comes. His days have been much slower as a result.
“It’s been an interesting side effect of being on the helicopter rescue team,” Edmark said. “I see everyone going on missions I can’t go on. I can’t hike, I can’t go too far north or south. I can’t get too committed to anything I can’t immediately walk away from.”
Edmark has always loved what he does, and smiles telling the stories, but there is a dark side to the job. Not everyone can be rescued.
He has dealt with several suicides in his time with SAR. He has cleaned up the gruesome aftermath of victims who have suffered long falls. His team was even asked by police to take part in an evidence search for a local homicide.
“Somebody has to do the job, and not everybody can handle that,” he said. “You sort of become a bit calloused, because you can’t let it affect you. The people that can’t do that don’t last long.”
One case in particular, the disappearance of 28-year-old Sam Sayers on the Vesper Peak trail in August of 2018, stands out. In his experience, Edmark said, missing hikers are found dead or alive within a day or two almost 100 percent of the time. Almost, he said. Sam Sayers is the reason he has to say almost.
After Sayers disappearance, Edmark was among the first people to arrive at the trail. They began to search using standard lost hiker protocol, first tracing the trail from bottom to top, and then searching in places that commonly draw people off trail like vistas or lakes, but there was no sign of her.
The family of Sayers has continued the search months after her disappearance, but they have yet to find anything. Edmark believes if she was alive on that mountain, she would’ve already been found.
“It’s tough, we’ve done everything we can and the family has put a lot of pressure on increasing efforts,” Edmark said. “The best thing we can do is learn and become better from it.”
It’s not a glamorous position and there is no pay, but Edmark can’t see himself doing anything else with his free time. The people he rescues are his fellow outdoor enthusiasts, people who saved his life once when he needed it most.
“There are mountain rescue teams everywhere, and there will always be people who need help, and I plan to be there for them.” Edmark said with a smile. “Just like they were there for me.”
Link to more photos of Joe in action:
