A team from Prince George Search and Rescue (PGSAR) was in Sparwood for the happy ending of the Kienan Hebert incident.
The three-year-old boy, who was abducted from his home overnight Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, was returned to the same home by the kidnapper at about 3 a.m. Sunday.
In the meantime Jeff Smedley, Anthony Gagnon, Christina Charest, Dale Bull and John Vogt were from PGSAR joined dozens of trained volunteers brought by the RCMP from all over B.C. and Alberta, plus about 200 untrained ones marshalled by experts.
It was Smedley's third time involved in a major search for a child (not including many relatively minor ones).
"My first was Joseph Andrews [missing on the Salmon River in 2002] and that was not successful, we did not find him," Smedley said. "The second was for a missing girl in Armstrong[Carmen Kados, 2007]. Someone abducted her then released her."
With those experiences in mind - Andrews was never found, Kados suffered injuries - Smedley said he felt "ecstatic" when word came in that Hebert was safe.
"It was like floating on air. All the years you put into Search and Rescue, these are the moments where you know why you do this."
The empty Hebert family home was not an accident, he said.
"It's a tactic that worked out. It [making it available to the abductor] was absolutely something that was discussed," said Smedley, but it was only one option put into play. Another, for example, was slowly driving the town at night in a fire truck, red lights flashing, because children that age are sometimes attracted to that.
There were two subjects of the search, one being Hebert and one being the suspected abductor Randall Peter Hopley, 46. The case also presented a number of unknowns and variables.
"One theory was Kienan had walked away from the home and was lost, which is why we did the fire truck and the shoulder-to-shoulder search in the immediate area of the home. The second theory was he had been taken away and that led us search 60 to 70 kilometres out from Sparwood and it turned out that was the correct theory."
Now that Hebert is accounted for, "we do not take part in manhunts," Smedley explained. That is up to law enforcement. However, SAR personnel may be called in to look for evidence if the area in question has been cleared of any foreseeable threats to the searchers' safety.
Seeing the outpouring of support from the SAR community was an uplifting but not surprising experience, said Smedley. He has seen it before, and that is why people leave their jobs in Prince George and elsewhere to muster in a small East Kootenay town.
"I saw Search and Rescue people there who came up to help us on the search for Joseph Andrews," he said.
For the town he had nothing but praise.
"The community of Sparwood was incredible," he said. "I took $40 in cash in case I needed to buy something, but I came home with $40 in my pocket. Whatever we needed, that community stepped up to supply it for the personnel."
Prince George MLA Shirley Bond is the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General for B.C. She also praised the people - volunteer and professional - who came together with the right combination to have Hebert returned.
"While we can all breathe a sigh of relief, the job is not yet complete," she said. "I was notified by the RCMP shortly after Kienan's return; it is clear that investigators will not rest until his abductor is caught and faces justice."
