Sasee Magazine

Retired educator Christy Judah is not only a prolific author who’s written thirteen books on local history and search and rescue training, she also founded, and continues to lead, the Brunswick County Search and Rescue Team. This 501 (c) (3) non-profit is an all volunteer organization and currently has five trained dogs and handlers. Christy and Wendy Long, a nurse at New Hanover Regional Medical Center and volunteer dog handler, sat down with Sasee to talk about the passion they have for their work.

Christy, how did you get started with search and rescue?

I’m giving away my age, [laughing] but I had been invited to my 30th high school reunion and couldn’t attend. Afterward, I got a call from one of my classmates asking why I didn’t come and found out he was the head of a search and rescue team in Robeson County [North Carolina]. I was interested in learning more, and he put me in touch with someone in Wilson County who helped me to begin training Bailey, my English Springer Spaniel. After more than a year of training, we were ready to search, but there was no organized team in our area.

Wendy and I planned the first meeting, rented a room and ran an ad in the newspaper. We formed a search team in 1998 and became a 501 (c) (3) non-profit in 1999. There are five certified dogs and handlers on our team.

What’s involved in being certified?

Christy: The training is very intensive, taking more than a year to complete. The certification test is tough. The dog and handler are taken to a strange place and tested on finding live humans, human remains and water rescue. Certification must be renewed every two years to make sure the animal is healthy and able to search. All dogs and handlers must attend trainings at least three times a month, as well as keep logs and document each search and training.

There is not one best breed of dog for search and rescue. It depends on the drive of the dog. Bailey searches “off lead.” I take him to our assigned area and give him the command to find. He then winds through the area and if he catches the scent of a person, he’ll keep honing in until he finds him or her. But, Bailey has been trained not to bother the person he finds, so he’ll run back to me and put his paws on my shoulders to let me know he’s found someone. Not all dogs are “air scenters.” Bloodhounds, for example, are taken to where the missing person was last thought to be and given a scent to follow on the ground.

After the search is over, Bailey is rewarded with food, petting and lots of love. He expects a party every time! These dogs are so highly trained. They all are taught to never bother any other animal in the woods and to ignore all distractions while they are searching. Every dog doesn’t make it through the training.

Wendy: Our dogs completely understand what we want from them. One of the biggest challenges for the handler is to trust your dog. Women tend to be very good at this type of trusting relationship and are usually more animated with their dog. Christy has a great reputation with law enforcement, but sometimes it is hard. You know it’s going to cost thousands of dollars to dig where your dog says a body is buried. No dog is 100% right, but they do know the difference between a deceased human being, and, say, a pet buried in the yard.

There is a science to scent – it emanates in a cone shape. If you burn a cone of incense and watch the smoke, you’ll understand what I’m saying. Everything has scent. We use a scent machine for training that mimics what the dogs will encounter while searching during the special water recovery training sessions.

Tell us about one of your more interesting searches.

Christy: There are many old cemeteries in our area, and Bailey and I have helped to identify graves that are unmarked. Trained search dogs can find graves that are as much as 200 years old, unless they are in very acidic soil which dissolves the remains. I got a call from a gentleman in his 80s who asked if I would help him find an old slave graveyard that he believed held the remains of his ancestors. I agreed, of course, and we went trucking through the woods – I wasn’t certain that we would find anything – and found the cemetery. We brought dogs in from other search and rescue organizations and found 78 gravesites! The cemetery is on Mary Hemingway’s former plantation. She was a pre-Civil war plantation owner who was thought to have owned over 200 slaves. For a woman to own this much land and property at that time was very unusual. I have written a few books on the history of Brunswick County – it’s another one of my passions. (The Legends of Brunswick County: Ghosts, Pirates, Indians, and Colonial North Carolina, and The Two Faces of Dixie: Politicians, Plantations, and Slaves.)

Yesterday we searched Lake Waccamaw for a drowning victim and were successful. We have a search and rescue boat with a side scan sonar that we were able to purchase last year after securing grant funding from several sources. The dogs stay in the boat and are able to accurately alert the handler to a body underwater.

Wendy: A seven-year-old, mentally challenged boy went wandering in the woods and, when his dog came home without him, was reported missing. We started searching for him around midnight, and he had been gone since about 3 pm. So many things can happen to a child alone in the woods, so we knew this was very serious. He was found about 10 minutes before dawn – we spotted his shoes, and he was sitting nearby, crying because he couldn’t find them. It was touch and go for a few minutes because he didn’t want to go with us. If he had run off again, there’s no telling how long it would have taken us to find him. I managed to calm him down and the search ended successfully.

Before we left, we were able to meet Bailey, and Wendy’s dog, Beau, an eight month old English Springer Spaniel, who is currently in training to becoming certified as a search and rescue dog. As we were saying goodbye, Christy’s five year old grandson came in the room and began chattering excitedly. Christy looked at him, smiled and told me, “This is why we do this…”

Christy’s books are available at www.christyjudah.com. For more information about search and rescue, or to join the Brunswick Search and Rescue Team, please contact Christy at christyjudah@atm.net, visit www.brunswicksar.org or contact Wendy, new member chairperson, at resqdiva@hotmail.com or 910-612-5911.