Ground was dedicated this week for a memorial at the Legislature to honour British Columbia search and rescue volunteers who have died in the line of duty.
It’s a joint project of Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue (RCM-SAR), the BC Search and Rescue Association and Provincial Emergency Program Air (PEP Air).
Two of the first names to go on the new memorial will be Sunshine Coast RCM-SAR volunteers Angie Nemeth and Beatrice Sorensen.
Nemeth and Sorensen, who were both with RCM-SAR Station 12, died in a training accident June 3, 2012 at the Skookumchuck Rapids. Friends and family have already set up a memorial for them at one of the Skookumchuck viewpoints. But RCM-SAR CEO Pat Quealey says it’s important to have the two women and other search and rescue volunteers recognized in the provincial capital.
“Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue is proud to partner with the BC Search and Rescue Association and PEP Air to establish this memorial. It will be a reminder of the courage and dedication of British Columbia’s thousands of search and rescue volunteers,” Quealey told Coast Reporter. “It is fitting that they [Nemeth and Sorensen] and others will be remembered through this memorial on the grounds of the legislative buildings.”
A committee of representatives from the province’s three volunteer SAR groups is starting to go over possible designs for the memorial, which will be near the existing memorials to police, firefighters and paramedics.
