COSAR to celebrate 60 years with open house

OKANAGAN – The public is invited to check out the Central Okanagan Search and Rescue Society open house this weekend to help celebrate 60 years of service.

The event takes place Saturday, Oct. 4, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the hall located at 4086 Old Vernon Rd.

There'll be demonstrations of high angle rope rescue techniques and racking, along with displays and several seminars on topics such as 'bear aware'. Representatives from other emergency services will be also be there. It's hoped previous members and people rescued in the past will show up and some will share their stories with the crowd.

The COSAR was established in 1954 when a little girl wandered off while camping with her family. It wasn't an organized group at first, and nobody was trained to search for her. It was just a band of people at a campsite who took up the task. The girl was found and those involved decided it was time to organize and train people for future tasks. Back then they called the organization Kelowna Search and Rescue.

In 1997 Kelowna Search and Rescue joined forces with Westbank Search and Rescue to form COSAR. They are the oldest organized search and rescue team in B.C.

Schedule of events as of Tuesday morning:

Noon   Bear aware seminar
1 p.m.  A rope team demonstration and/or a seminar on how to create your own personal preparedness plan
2 p.m.  A First Aid demonstration
3 p.m.  A Tracking demonstration

Pictures of the day will be posted later on the Okanagan Search and Rescue Twitter account, @okrescue.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw at aproskiw@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-0428. To contact the editor, email mjones@infotelnews.ca or call 250-718-2724.