The family of a Quebec couple lost for days in B.C.’s backcountry say they are stunned the letters SOS carved in the deep snow didn’t trigger an immediate, intensive search and rescue.

René Blackburn says he is not satisfied with the explanations the family has heard so far as to why officials failed to rescue Marie-Josée Fortin and came very late to the rescue of his son, Gilles Blackburn.

“It was botched, that’s for sure,” Mr. Blackburn said in an interview last night.
“They saw the SOS, but the search stopped at the ski centre and the hotel. It ended there. Someone should have gone and checked out the SOS.”

Added Gilles Blackburn’s mother, Ghislaine Boucher: “An SOS is an SOS. Isn’t it?”

In Golden, B.C., yesterday, the owner of the helicopter skiing outfitter that received two separate reports of SOS signs stamped in the snow before Ms. Fortin is said to have died said his company did everything it could to ensure a search effort was launched.

Rudi Gertsch, owner of Purcell Helicopter Skiing Ltd. in Golden, near Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, said his company properly followed its emergency protocol when it first caught wind of an SOS symbol and strange ski tracks on Feb. 17 – two days after the couple got lost.

The signs seemed to be left by skiers who went out of bounds from the resort, Mr. Gertsch said, so Purcell called the ski hill to launch an investigation even though the tracks were spotted on property leased by Purcell from the provincial government.

“It was not a missing heli-skier. It was somebody who skied out of bounds from the ski area. We followed the protocol from the ski area. If it was one of our skiers missing, it’s totally different,” and he would have called RCMP directly, Mr. Gertsch said.

But when Purcell received a report of two more SOS signs on its leased land on Feb. 21, Mr. Gertsch said he sensed something serious and this time called the RCMP, which failed to initiate an official search.

“What more could we do? All we can do is report it to the authority and follow the protocol,” he said.

Mr. Blackburn and Ms. Fortin were on a ski vacation when they ducked under the rope at the resort on Feb. 15 and became hopelessly lost, police say. They wandered aimlessly for days behind the resort, traversing 27 kilometres along a river valley, fighting fierce wind chills and fearing attack by wolves, before they were found on Feb. 24.

That’s when a Purcell helicopter, with Mr. Gertsch aboard, spotted an SOS, ski tracks and then a waving Mr. Blackburn. RCMP were called, and a full-fledged rescue operation was finally mounted. The 51-year-old man was airlifted to hospital and treated for frostbite, but it was too late for his 44-year-old wife, who family say had died two days earlier.

Jeff Dolan, director of regional operations with the B.C. Coroners Service, said an autopsy confirmed she died of hypothermia.

The coroner could not determine a definitive date of death, but Mr. Dolan said “there is nothing to suggest the date is different than that presented by her husband.”

Mr. Gertsch’s company was first contacted by an off-duty ski guide on Feb. 17. Purcell contacted the Kicking Horse resort, understanding that it would contact Golden and District Search and Rescue, since volunteer members also work at the ski hill. They hoped Search and Rescue would notify the RCMP.

Kicking Horse’s president Steve Paccagnan said it did a sweep of the above-ground parking lots, checked unreturned rental equipment and looked for reports of missing skiers. No signs were found.

Neither the resort, Search and Rescue nor Purcell called the RCMP, which is responsible for dispatching search teams.

Meanwhile, nobody noticed the couple’s abandoned vehicle in an underground parkade at an on-hill independent hotel, which they had checked out of.

The volunteer manager of Search and Rescue said this week that in retrospect, his organization regrets not contacting RCMP.

Purcell received another report on Feb. 21 by a group of skiers on the ground about two more SOS signs. Mr. Gertsch, who spends 100 days each winter schussing through the region, had never before seen an SOS in his territory.

“I personally notified the RCMP, and the RCMP should know if Rudi Gertsch reports some suspicious tracks, with my over 40 years as a professional guide, 35 years in this area, I would know when there’s somebody in distress. There’s a protocol to call the RCMP and that’s exactly what I did,” said Mr. Gertsch, acknowledging that that wasn’t the protocol followed on Feb. 17.

The RCMP admitted this week that it made an “error” in deciding not to launch a full-scale search after receiving the information on Feb. 21.

Steve Bachop, a director with B.C.’s Emergency Program, which oversees search and rescue operations, said a review would likely be done of the incident to determine whether any policies need to be changed.