96. ‘Utah County Search and Rescue’ and Answering the Call for Help (with volunteer, Deb Yokshas)

Deb Yokshas is a volunteer with Utah County Search and Rescue, who handle all outdoor search and rescue operations in the county. Not only is their team of rescuers 100% volunteer, but they also each pay thousands of dollars of their own money to be certified and have the right personal gear. These are people who are committed on a whole new level to helping and serving in their community. 

Deb tells some great stories in this podcast about some of her experiences (I think she’s the kind of person you would love to talk to at a party and just listen to all the stories she has to share). She also talks about her own journey of joining Search and Rescue and the skills it takes to be part of the team.

I promise after listening to this episode you will want to personally go find a first responder volunteer in your community and thank them for the good and tireless work they do! 

Links mentioned in the episode:

Utah County Search and Rescue Website

Utah County Search and Rescue Instagram

Utah County Search and Rescue Facebook

Follow the podcast on social media:

Do Something More Instagram

Do Something Facebook

Do Something More YouTube

Transcript

Melissa: This episode of the podcast features a volunteer from Utah County Search and Rescue. And not only does she tell some gripping stories in this episode, but she really helps you see all the real commitment and passion and integrity that first responder volunteers bring to their communities.

And I promise, after you listen to this episode, you will want to go find one of those first responders and thank them for the good work that they do. So here it is, episode 96.

Welcome to the Do Something More podcast. The show all about service, where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. If you're passionate about nonprofits or looking for simple ways to volunteer and give back to the causes that matter to you, this is a podcast for you.

I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Stick around and I'll show you all the many ways anyone can truly make a difference in our world today.

Welcome to this episode of the podcast, and I'm really looking forward to learning from our guest today, Deb Yakshas, who is a volunteer and former board member of the Utah County Search and Rescue.

And I really wanted to do an episode covering first responder volunteers because I think they do so much good work in our communities many times that we do not realize how much commitment that they have.

And so I think this will be a great episode for all of us to learn a little more and also hear some stories about these experiences. But, Deb, welcome to the podcast.

Deb: Thank you so much.

Melissa: And we'll get into introducing you, but I wanted to say, you came to our Hundred Women who Care meeting, and the thing that stuck with me, I came home and even told my husband.

I was amazed. I knew that you volunteered your time to do these rescues, but I had no idea that volunteers also pay for their own personal gear and their certifications, sometimes even gas.

And it's thousands of dollars of a commitment. And I was just so impressed by that. I'm like, wow, these are such committed people. But I don't think our communities realize how much literally blood, sweat and tears and money they put into saving lives and to being there as first responders.

So I wanted to start off with that and say thank you for the good work and service that you do.

Deb: Thank you so much. Yeah, it's. It's a common thought that we're paid because, you know, most firefighters are paid and paramedics, ambulances, when they show up, like, they're generally unless. Unless they're specifically volunteer.

But no, everyone on the team is volunteer. We are run by the sheriff's office. So those are those are paid individuals through the sheriff's office. But as far as the team members go, we're all volunteer, so that's amazing.

Melissa: We need to all go out and thank one of our search and rescue members today, I think. Well, let's just start off. Why don't you give us a introduction of yourself and then just get into the basics of what Utah County Search and Rescue does for maybe anyone that might not be familiar with your role.

Deb: Yeah. So I am 35 years old and I live in Utah county with my dog. And I grew up in Southern California, and I didn't have a ton of exposure to the outdoors growing up.

I. I grew up in a little bit of an inland town from the beach cities and there, you know, there are a lot of houses, and I was always out trying to find the empty field or the tree to climb or whatever I could in, in that type of environment.

But I moved to Utah about 16 years ago, so I was 19 years old and kind of moved out on a whim, just on my own. I didn't really know anyone out here.

I didn't. I found a job and I. I moved out. I packed up my car with all my things and came out. And it still took probably about another decade to really fall deeply in love with nature.

I. I've always been drawn to it, but it wasn't until about 2019 that I realized I love it here and I want to stay.

Melissa: As a Utahn born and bred, I'm glad that you found all of the good things to love about living here. And one of those is the outdoors. And, and our county especially is very unique with all of the different opportunities and things that are here.

And I'm sure that really plays into all that you do with the Utah County Search and Rescue. So let's get into that. What. Just give us the basics of what the role of Utah County Search and Rescue is.

Deb: Yeah. So Utah County SAR is, in my opinion, one of the most skilled teams out there. I know I'm probably biased, and there's a lot of skills in other counties, especially Salt Lake county, they deal with, with a lot of climbing, technical rescues.

Our team has a wide variety of terrain. And so, you know, we've got, we've got mountains, we've got lakes, we've got rivers. So swiftwater rescue, there's desert. We just have so many different types of rescue that we have to train for.

And, uh, and our team does it very well. So this means we're training for rock climbing, ice climbing, diving, avalanches, swift Water rescue, heat stroke, hypothermia, technical mountain rescues, missing person searches, down aircraft, basically anything that is off of the pavement we're getting paged to.

And everyone on the team goes through one year of new member trainings and, and then undergoes a three day, two night new member evaluation.

And I can't share too much about that because we try and keep it a little bit of a secret from the new members. So that makes sense. They're getting fresh experience.

But I will say it consists of back to back to back rescues for those typically three days that are meant to push us towards our limits and see how we respond in stressful situations, in sleep deprived states.

How do we handle it? Can we still tie our knots? Can we still put together a rope system? Can we treat each other well and communicate well when, when we're in these high stress and like really crucial moments where you know, safety of the patient matters and our safety matters as well.

Melissa: Yeah, I'm sure you really have to learn to work together as a true team in those situations.

Deb: Yeah, we do. And, and in addition to that we've got so many skilled people on the team. We have everyone on the team has basic life saving medical training and then nearly 60% of the team currently has advanced medical training.

So if you're calling for help, you're likely going to have paramedics, nurses, PAs, I think we even have a chiropractor on the team now showing up to these calls in addition to some really, really skilled people with their outdoor skill set that they've got.

Melissa: So if someone's in an outdoor emergency situation, they call 911 here in Utah county. All those calls go to Utah County Search and Rescue, is that right?

Deb: Right. So the way that it works is someone calls 91 1, let's say they're out, they're out in the mountains and they twisted their ankle and they can't walk and it's getting dark and it's getting cold and they know they're about to be in a bad situation.

They call 911-911-DISPATCH will send it out to,

to the different departments that they think might need to know about it. And some point it's decided search and rescue is going to be needed for this. It's, it's on a trail in the mountains, whatever.

And our, our deputies will get, our deputy sergeants will get the page for that and then they determine what sort of resources they need. So sometimes they'll send out,

they'll send out a request to a small group of people on the team if they don't feel like the whole team is needed, otherwise they'll send out a page to the team.

Maybe say, people who live on the north end of Utah county, we need your help in the spa or south end or the whole team. And then all of us, we're just out and about in our regular lives, you know, we're either working on the yard, at work, at our jobs,

at a birthday party, a family dinner, whatever, and we get to decide whether we're responding to that call out or not. We have to hit certain attendance numbers. So our attendance numbers are 30%.

After your first year, you have to be at 30% of rescues and 50% of team meetings and team trainings. And so we're not, we're not required to call in and say, hey, I'm, I'm not coming to this one, can I get the day off?

It's not how it works. It's just you come when you can and you, you don't when you can't. And my general rule of thumb is I'm going to everyone that I can.

So when I do have things come up that I don't necessarily want to leave or can leave or maybe I'm out of town, I'm not getting stressed about how close I am to that 30% and am I going to make my numbers this year and with how many call outs we get,

that does amount to a lot of time, a lot of hours.

Last year.

Last year was kind of a record breaking year for some reason,

but we had, I think right around 240 call outs.

Melissa: Wow.

Deb: So whatever 30% of that is, that's still a lot. Yeah.

Melissa: So there's some flexibility there. But as I thought about it, that was one question I was wondering is, as a volunteer, how do you navigate that with your other responsibilities with work and family and how have you been able to successfully balance all of that?

Deb: Yeah, that's a good question. A lot of people on the team have flexibility in their lives. So we typically don't have like students.

Melissa: Normal 9 to 5 job or things like that.

Deb: Right, right. Because a lot of students, or 9 to 5 job or whatever, they've got like some pretty strict schedules that they have to stick to and they're just in a time in their life where they don't have a lot of flexibility.

So a lot of our team members maybe own their own business or work remote or have been at their company long enough that they have a lot of flexibility, ability to come and go.

We do have a lot of team members who, who have a lot of kids, they've got young families and they've got all the soccer games and the commitments and everything.

And, and so maybe their numbers are sitting around like 30, 40%. Whereas me, I'm. I'm single and I have my home and my dog to take care of. And so I.

I'm usually sitting a lot higher, maybe 70, 80% of call outs. Cause I love it, I enjoy it. I have the time, I have the space. Space to do it.

Melissa: Yeah. What initially inspired you to join the team?

Deb: Yeah, that's. That is a great story. So back in 2019, I was very freshly going through a divorce and I'd been married for quite a few years and was going through this divorce and it just completely turned my world upside down.

I. I didn't know which way was up or down. I was a depressed wreck, shell of a human. And a friend of mine started inviting me to the climbing gym.

So I went to the climbing gym a few times and. And she had a couple friends invite the two of us to Moab for a trip. And so I said yes.

I hadn't, I hadn't really met these people before and went on this trip down to Moab. And we were down in the Cane Creek area. And it's a. It's a fairly remote area.

You're going down a winding dirt road and you've got these towering cliffs all along the road. There's no cell service.

And we get to this climbing spot. It's pretty mellow. Climbing spot. I was up on top rope and you know, we're just out having fun and taking photos and whatever, and we hear this loud boom.

And so we look to our right down, down the cliffs and we see what looks like a person wrapped up in a parachute, falling, falling through the air, bouncing off the cliffs and, and the rocks.

And it all happened so fast and it sounded like a landslide, like it sounded like tons of rockfall. And we looked at each other and said, did that just happen?

Did we just see what we think we just saw?

And you know, this is a 400 foot cliff that this person was falling from. And so we. I was on top rope. Luckily I was only like 20ft up. The guy that was bullying me just kind of let go of the rope and I wasn't completely vertical, so I slid down.

I tossed on my shoes. Two of the guys had already started running in the direction of this person. I ended up tossing on my shoes and I'm running after them.

And we're on some steep scree slope, and so it's not easy running across it. He was probably about 100 yards away. And we're just expecting the worst. Like, we're not going to find a whole human here.

Like, that was a huge fall. And I get about 20ft away, and the two guys had gotten to them, and they yelled back at me, go back and get whatever supplies you can.

They. I remember they specifically asked for a camelback. They said, go see if you can find a camelback with anyone and any other supplies that you can. And I. I remember, like, muttering, oh, my God, he's alive.

And so I turn around and I sprint back and I'm asking. There were a couple of people I didn't know in that crag. And then there were maybe like six of us that I didn't know.

And. And I said, does anybody have anything like, who has a camelback? Who has medical supplies? Like, anything you've got that might be helpful, give it to me right now.

And so everyone's like, pulling out their bags and they handed me a camelback and some other stuff, and I'm. I'm holding all these things and I'm running back over to.

Over to this person and get to him, and he's face down in the dirt. He's kind of like moaning and groaning, and I'm just like, blown away. This guy is alive.

And he had base jumped off this BASE jumping exit out there. And his parachute had. There was some sort of malfunction. It had folded in the wind or something. And it stayed partially inflated enough times like it kind of partially.

And popped open a couple of times enough to save his life. And we ended up, you know, there was an EMT there, and so he's kind of trying to do basic medical on him.

I'm running down to the road, trying to flag down people to see if anyone has a radio and can call for help. And they sent a couple cars into town to go get cell Service and call 911.

And I run back up and I felt like I don't know what else to do. Like, I don't know how to save this man. Like, I'm. We were all doing our best, but we didn't know what kind of internal damage he had.

We didn't know what was going to happen to him. And he did have a very obvious deformity in his shoulder, a dislocated shoulder, probably broken. And we didn't dare move him.

And so I ended up sitting there and I got his name his birthday, his allergies, his parents names, because I, I thought he was going to die. By the time help got there, I knew help was at least an hour or two out.

And so I, I held his hand and told him, you're going to be okay, you're going to make it out of this. And at some point he, he was able to kind of shift enough to see his shoulder and he sees the deformity of it and panics and starts screaming and goes into shock.

And we were there for about another hour and a half before search and rescue was able to get out there. And they came up and they reduced his dislocation and they set up a lower system and put him in the stokes and, and lowered him down to the road and got him in an ambulance and out of there.

I remember leaving that situation just feeling like I didn't do enough. Like I, I know that I did. Logically I knew that I helped, right? But in the moment I felt lost and I felt like I knew that there was more that I could do if I just had the knowledge.

And so a couple months after that he, you know, he'd gotten out of the hospital and he'd healed up a little bit. He had had a, a broken back and dislocated shoulder and I'm not sure what else, but he reached out and wanted to thank me and everyone else who helped.

And he ended up asking me, hey, do you want to learn how to trad climb? And I said, sure, yeah, I would love that, having no idea what trad climbing was.

And so I, I meet him out at this route up, up one of the Cottonwood Canyons, and he spends 30 minutes teaching me how to climb trad, how to place gear, how to manage rope on a multi pitch, which I had done none of those things.

And he led the first pitch, I led the second. And for the rest of the summer, the two of us climbed together. We just, we disappeared into the mountains and we had a great friendship, a great climbing partnership.

And that was when I really fell in love with the mountains and the outdoors. At the end of summer, I thought, well, what am I going to do with all of this now?

Like I have, I've just spent the last, how many months kind of escaping my own emotional trauma and learning this new skill set and falling in love with it and, and I remembered that moment in like out in Moab where I felt really just underqualified for the task.

And so I thought maybe I'll. I wonder if there's like a search and rescue thing out here. And so I googled it and I saw that applications closed in a week.

So I, I put together my application, I drove it down to the sheriff's office, dropped it off, and ended up getting a call for an interview. And I walk in to the interview and it's, it's big.

It's a big long conference table full of like big police looking dudes.

And I go in and I sit down and I'm like, are there women here?

I feel a little bit out of place. Am I in the right spot? And the interview went well. And I remember they asked me, what can you contribute to the team?

And I told them, I know my ropes and I can make you guys laugh and I'm stronger than I look.

And I got on the team and that's, that's how I ended up. Now here I am. This is my sixth year on the team and it just changed the course of my life.

It's, it's the thing that I didn't know that I was missing, that I, I really, truly was missing from my life. That brings me a lot of joy and fulfillment.

Melissa: What an inspiring experience.

And then I just think to go from that and to say, you know, I'm, I'm glad I was there to help, but I want to do more, I want to learn more, I want to get this skill set.

I think it's just. And then to use it to help other people in a volunteer capacity is inspiring too.

Deb: Thank you.

Melissa: That's a great, great personal story.

I'm sure that you've had many other stories and experiences since then that have confirmed what you do on search and rescue. Are there any of those that you want to share that have really, that stand out to you a little more?

Deb: Maybe then,

yeah, there's, I mean, I, I got countless stories I could, I could go on for days and days. All of the funny, sad,

traumatic, cool stories. I'm sure one that comes to mind, it was, it was a few years back and we get paged out, I want to say it was probably like 10 or 11pm Middle of winter.

And we get paged out to American Fork Canyon. We end up, I, I drive out to CP command post and there were two teenage kids who had gone out snowshoeing at, I want to say like 10am that morning.

And they'd never come back. And so there's not, at the time there wasn't cell service up there. There, there's some cell towers now, but at the time there wasn't. And so These kids had found one little spot of cell service down Timpanukee Road.

There's a, there's a curve. I know exactly where it's at because I've been there many times where cell service pops up for just about a half mile. And they found this spot and they got cell service and they called 911 and they said, we're lost.

And then the calls dropped and we get paged out and so we're out there. And I was one of the first people to CP and along with two other guys, they said, okay, the three of you are gonna go up on foot.

We'll shuttle you up in side by side that has tracks on it. It was, it was beyond road maintenance, like winter maintenance. So the gate gets closed at a certain point and beyond that it's just snow in the winter.

And so they said you are plan C. Essentially, like we're gonna send. If the helicopter can fly, we'll send the helicopter. We're also going to send snowmobiles up, but we need to, we need to get the snowmobiles here.

We need to figure out if helicopter can fly tonight. And we're just going to set you guys out on the road just in case and we'll probably pick you up on the way back.

And so we get shuttled out as far as we can go. During the winter, there are a lot of avalanches that run through there. And so with the avalanches, there's a lot of deadfall and trees blocking the trails and the roads and stuff.

And so we got to a certain point where the side by side couldn't go any further. So we hop out. There was a huge winter storm that had been rolling through and was still kind of actively snowing.

And so we had snowshoes on and we're still post holing down to, you know, our knees or our thighs. So it was, it was slow going and it was a really tough hike out there.

And we didn't have any sort of reliable GPS coordinates for them. Um, a lot of times we get GPS coordinates, but we can't 100% trust them. It, you know, it might bounce off a tower the wrong way or whatever.

And in this particular scenario, we had gotten three different GPS coordinates in three very different directions. And so at that point we're like, okay, we can't trust any of these.

We just need to, we need the man track and we need to use our intuition, we need to use our, our tracking, like, physical tracking skills to find these kids.

And it was a little bit of A race against time because the storm was blowing through. It was a really cold winter night, and we knew that there was a good chance that they could die from exposure if they weren't found quickly enough.

And so we set out on foot. We're trekking through the snow and we ended up coming across some moose tracks, some fresh moose tracks in the fresh snow. And I'm like, hey guys, there's.

There's going to be a moose somewhere around here nearby, so just keep your eyes open. So we're kind of just paying attention to any wildlife. And then we come across.

Across some fresh mountain lion tracks. And I'm like, hey guys, fresh mountain lion tracks. Just be very aware of our surroundings.

And, you know, we're pretty far from civilization and from the rest of our team by this point. These mountain lion tracks, they go off the trail and then they come back up and you see them turning into four foot strides.

So this mountain lion had been running, hunting something, and I'm like, all right, guys, we've got running mountain lion tracks. Like, keep your eyes.

At some point, you know, I had to pee and so I'm like, okay. I. And I'm. Most of the team is male and. And so I'm like, hey guys, I gotta pee.

And they were like, okay, we'll just, we'll go down around the corner. And I said, you are not leaving me here with my pants with a mountain lion somewhere nearby probably watching us.

So I'm gonna have you both stand right there and turn your backs to me and real life experience with Paris,

the wilderness bathroom. Yeah. We continue on and we end up getting to this avalanche slide path. And it very regularly slides in the winter. It's. It's a known avalanche path and it was a dark night and we couldn't quite see the top of this path, so we couldn't see how precarious the cornices were.

We couldn't really assess the danger level there. So we, you know, our number, our number one priority to be able to help people is we have to survive. You know,

rule that is the official rule on a team is, you know, we take care of our safety first. And being with these type of people, like any one of them would put their life on the line for a stranger.

So it is like a tough thing to balance. But we're standing there kind of at the start of the avalanche path and we stopped to discuss it and give our opinions about it.

And we said, well, if we don't find these kids tonight, they'll probably die. So you know, we've all got our Abby, gear, beacon, shovel, probe.

We'll go. We'll cross this path one at a time, and if it slides, the. The other two, like, gotta dig out the third.

And so we cross one by one. And I remember we said, just be as quiet as possible, right? We don't wanna disturb anything. So I remember I got halfway across this slide path and I got so scared, I just started running.

And I don't often feel that deep feeling of fear. I don't know. I. I have a healthy awareness of danger and death and all. All of that, but you gotta be.

Melissa: A little tough, I think, to be honest.

Deb: Yeah, you gotta be tough and you've gotta be stressful situations. And that comes fairly naturally to me. And so, you know, I got scared, though, and I ran and I get to the other side and I'm like, okay, I made it to the other side.

And I think I was second to go. And so the third comes across and we're like, okay, we're good. And we keep hiking, and about 30 minutes later, we find these kids.

And it was just, you know, it was the best feeling to find them. And. And they were. They were doing well. They were slightly hypothermic. So, you know, we did basic medical on them.

We. We warmed them up. It was a girl and a boy, and so I was glad to be there and. And like, do a patient assessment on the girls and when I did a patient assessment on.

On the guy and. And so we walk them back the way that we came, and we have to cross this avalanche path again. And at this point we're thinking, okay, we made it across safely, but, you know, it's still a danger and we only have our three beacons on us.

And so we each took off our beacons and two of us took off our beacons and put them on the kids and walked across, like, escorting them across. So I.

I took the girl and. And I told her, you know, we're gonna go quietly, and if this slides, you cling to me because you are the only way that I might survive.

So we. We get across and,

you know, it doesn't slide. We're all okay. And by that point, the snowmobiles had gotten there, and we're like, where have you guys been? They had fallen tree after fallen tree.

They ended up having to bring in, like, chainsaws to cut down these trees and. And logs and move them off the trail and get the snowmobiles through one of them.

They ended up just building a snow Ramp over the trees because it was too many trees to, to chop up and move that night. And so, you know, we hopped on the back of the snowmobiles and we ride back to command post.

And we got back and the dad of one of the kids, I don't remember which one,

he's like, he's gotta be like six four, six five. He just looked like a massive dude. And he came up to me just sobbing and gave me a hug and said, thank you so much for saving their lives.

And that was just like, that was such a rewarding moment for me where of course I didn't do it alone. It was a solid through and through team effort.

But I did contribute to saving these lives that night.

Melissa: And put your own life on the line too, a little bit.

Deb: Yeah, I got a little adrenaline rush.

It was just such a rewarding experience. And to get to have those types of experiences fairly regularly is just.

It's like, it brings a lot of fulfillment to my life. Right.

Melissa: I can only imagine what that would be like. And I think with search and rescue, it's something I think most of us are aware of. But until you've actually needed that service or you've been praying and worrying about a family member that needed that, I don't think you fully appreciate what an awesome,

you know, what an amazing thing it is that we have a team like that readily available to go in in these different situations.

Deb: Yeah, yeah. It's so true. And I mean, for the most part, people are very, very appreciative. We do get the occasional person who's got a little bit of an ego and they'll come out of it and say, well, thank you guys so much.

I. I know that I would have made it out on my own, but I'm really glad you guys came. And I'm like, you probably would have made it out, but you would have lost a hand to frostbite in the process.

But that's, it's so rare. And, and we don't do it for the praise or the recognition. So those rare occasions, they don't sour. Being on Search and Rescue and giving our time and energy, it's,

you know, it's something that we laugh about and whatever, but like a lot of us, we're doing it, it's actually helping us. Like, for me, I know that it helps me, like, it's when we go a while without a rescue, I'm getting a little stir crazy.

I'm feeling like something feels off in my life. Like I just need to get out and use my skills and move my body and help someone feel good. And so as much as we get to help other people, it truly does help us as well.

Melissa: Yeah, I think that's a beautiful thing about all service and you know, just giving of yourself for other people. It does give back to us in so many different ways.

Well, this has been a great conversation. Some good stories I can't wait to have share with everyone. I always love to end every episode with general advice.

And so if you just want to give some quick general advice either for someone that's thinking about joining a search and rescue team or being any kind of volunteer first responder and then also just the ways that we can support good volunteer first responders like yourself in our communities.

Deb: Yeah, some of the key things at least in Utah county that are looked for in new members are obviously in our situation. It's a love for the outdoors,

firefighting or whatever, but some basic self rescue tendencies where you just kind of naturally know how to handle a situation. But even bigger than that grit like to be able to not just be able to suffer in the outdoors, but to be able to suffer and have fun while you're doing it like that.

That is a core thing that you've got to have to be able to be on search and rescue and also being fully aware and happy with the fact that it's not a one man show, it's or a one woman show.

It's just, it's a team effort and there's no singular hero. Like we're all working together to help out other people.

And so if someone's coming in looking to, you know, be on the front page news for dangling off a cliff like it might happen, but it's probably not going to happen.

And so coming in with kind of that wholesome outlook on it is going to be really beneficial. And as far as helping out, like let's say you're not, you're not a person who's going to join search and rescue perfectly okay.

But you still want to help out. I think like educating yourself is going to be really helpful and then after that helping educate other people. There are also ways to support our team directly.

We do accept donations,

we do try and provide gear for the team through those donations and advance our own skill set. If you want to, if you want to follow us on Instagram, if you want to see our website or anything like that, the website is utah sar.org S A R Instagram is Instagram and Facebook.

I mean you can just search Utah County Sar and you'll find it. But our Instagram handle is Utah County S A R. Yeah, I'll put links.

Melissa: To all of that in the show notes. And going back to what I said at the beginning of the show, I think that would be money well spent or donated when I realized again, the thousands of dollars on top of the thousands of hours that you put into volunteering, that would be a great way,

I think, to support our search and rescue team so well. Deb, thank you so much for being willing to come on the podcast today and share your own story and experiences and give us a little more of inside look of what our first responders do.

So thank you.

Deb: Yeah, thank you so much.

Melissa: That was my interview with Deb Yakshus with Utah County Search and Rescue.

And I thought as I listened to her tell those stories, Deb is the kind of person you would want to be next to at a party.

She has, I'm sure, so many great stories to share about her experiences. And you can see not only the commitment but the real passion that she has for working in the outdoors and stepping in to help people in these various situations.

And after speaking with her and doing the research that I did for this episode, I really do think that first responder volunteers like those on Search and rescue or those that work with firefighters or in other capacities really show kind of a next level commitment to their communities,

to the hours they spend helping and serving and rescuing in those various situations. And again, I really don't think most of us realize how much they do. Until you've been the person in that situation that's called 911 or needed that help, or been praying and hoping for a family member or a friend that needed that help.

You really don't realize all the good work that they do. So that's my final encouragement from this episode. Go find a first responder volunteer in your community and thank them in some way for the good and tireless work that they do.

And as a friendly reminder, if you got something out of this episode or want to share Deb's great stories with somebody else, please share this episode with a family member or a friend or someone that you might have thought of that would enjoy listening to this kind of interview.

And also, I will always take five star ratings or reviews, especially on Apple podcasts. But on any platform that you listen to this subscribing to the podcast, leaving those reviews really benefits the podcast and helps others to find the inspiring content that I'm producing here with dosomething more.

And of course, as Always. I hope this week that you can find a way to do something more to help lift, inspire, or make a difference.