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The OPP and GBVSAR
Join The Cast of Survive This!

By Stephane Bachand

Last September, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Georgian Bay Volunteer Search and Rescue (GBVSAR) joined the set of Survive This! (formerly known as Survivorman: Kids) for the filming of the finale episode. Survive This! is a new adventure reality show produced by 9 Story Entertainment Inc. with Les Stroud, a.k.a. “Survivorman.” The final episode, which will air in 2009 on YTV, involves four different search and rescue (SAR) missions and includes a search team from GBVSAR and the OPP’s K9, marine and air units.

Left to Right, Chris Schonberg, Scott Tuck, Less Stroud, Drew Hutchings and Darren Buck. Photo Credit: Pat Dizavario

Survive This!

The new show, conceived by the producers of Survivorman, filmed eight teens who were sent into the wild without their Internet, televisions or cellular phones, to participate in a number of different survival scenarios. Each teen attended survival school and expert survival instructors were on hand to teach the skills they would need to survive a variation of situations. Each scenario, filmed in a number of locations across Northern Ontario, involved progressively more challenging circumstances that tested participants in group and individual survival.

The aim of a show like the Survivorman series is to provide viewers with the necessary skills to explore and survive outdoors. In order to keep the show as realistic as possible, the teens were placed in situations in which they had to survive on their own with no outside support. The teens had to rely on their own skills and the on-hand resources to survive, while the film crews filmed their progress from a distance. The producers wanted to end the show with a scenario that involved SAR. To help orchestrate the finale, the producers called the National Search and Rescue Secretariat (NSS) for assistance. In their request to the NSS for participation and support, Jeff Trasher, Challenge Producer for the show, said “We feel that this is a great opportunity for exposure of search and rescue and to help educate the public, specifically teens and children, on what to do in worst case scenario incidents for survival, and to give SAR units the best chance of finding them safely.” For its part, the NSS asked the OPP if they could provide guidance related to the filming. Members of the OPP worked with the producers to refine the scripts so they would reflect the realities of how the OPP and SAR volunteers are called called out to search for a missing person, and how actual searches are conducted.

OPP and GBVSAR mobile command posts. Photo Credit: Pat Dizavario

Finale

OPP Helicopter - Orillia Pilot: Sgt. Scott Ross. Photo Credit: Darren Buck

For the filming of the finale, the OPP and members of GBVSAR participated in four different searches at the Leslie Frost Centre in Halliburton, Ontario. The OPP’s K9, marine and air units, as well as the GBVSAR, each had to search for a missing teen. The filming was done in one day and presented the points of view of both searchers and missing teens. Starting from the OPP’s command post location, filming included the OPP and GBVSAR’s arrival on scene, equipment and radio checks, the issuing of maps, each search team’s briefing on the available information related to their missing teens, and the search plan.

The GBVSAR search team included Darren Buck, Scott Tuck, Drew Hutchings and Chris Schonberg. The team was tasked to search for a missing 16 year-old girl who had been reported as “not returned home” for an extended period of time. The search team set out on foot, followed by a camera crew, to look for her. Hiking through rough terrain and swamps, they arrived at an island in the middle of a swamp - the area where the teen was expected to be. The girl answered their calls and indicated that she was okay.

Left to Right, Chris Schonberg, Darren Buck, Jen Duab, Drew Hutchings and Scott Tuck. Photo Credit: Darren Buck

She was told to stay put so that they could perform a medical check to ensure she was not injured, before she tried to walk out with them. To make the trip a little easier, they gathered some logs to bridge part of the swampy area so that she did not have to go - as Darren Buck put it - “swamp swimming” in the waist deep water in order to reach dryer land. These search efforts lead to another successful rescue.

It is hoped that the participation of both the OPP and GBVSAR in this project will help Canadians gain better understanding of the process and time involved in launching a missing person search.

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