Montrose Search and Rescue aims to recruit new members

Now that a few years have passed since its last major recruitment push, the Montrose Search and Rescue Team with about 20 members is looking to add to the group’s roster.

Under the team’s watchful eye is a considerable swath of perilous land — 500 square miles of the Angeles National Forest.

In 2015 and 2014, the team received an average of 100 emergency calls for assistance, including hikers who lost their way or drivers whose cars flung off the curvy mountain roads.

It’s rare that team members will get a direct call from someone who needs rescuing in the forest, where cellphone reception is spotty. Most of the calls are made by their family members or witnesses to an incident.

Pasadena resident John Rodarte, who spends his daytime hours working as a pediatrician in La Cañada Flintridge, has been on the team the past 12 years.

As the team searches for more members, preferably those who work or live near the foothills in Glendale, La Cañada or La Crescenta, Rodarte said that dedication is key.

New volunteers must take six months of training through the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Academy, pass an extensive background check and become trained in mountain rescue to earn certification from the Mountain Rescuers Assn.

The entire process takes about a year, Rodarte said.

“It’s a lot more in depth than people think,” he said.

At the end of the training process, each volunteer becomes a reserve deputy sheriff and earns $1 a year, making them eligible for disability in case they should get injured.

Once in a while, people who team members rescue will want to reunite with them.

“Moments like that make it all worth it,” Rodarte said.

The volunteers — who have a variety of careers including teachers, bankers and lawyers — sometimes face difficult life-and-death scenarios while on the team.

Earlier this year, when a truck crashed in the mountains of the Angeles National Forest, Rodarte climbed into the back of the truck to rescue a 12-year-old girl pinned inside.

“She had so many injuries she almost died right in front of us,” he said.

With assistance from Air Rescue 5, which is a helicopter rescue unit from the L.A County Sheriff’s Department, the team performed CPR on the girl during the flight to Huntington Hospital.

Once at the hospital, doctors revived her, but she succumbed to her injuries one week later.

After her death, her organs were given to five people in need.

“She was able to save other people’s lives,” Rodarte said.

In anticipation of the wet El Niño conditions expected this winter, the team will also prepare for washed-out trails and mudslides as well as swift-water rescues.

“It could create a lot of havoc,” he said of El Niño. “We expect, unfortunately, a busy year.”

The team’s recruitment meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27 at the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station, 4554 Briggs Ave., La Crescenta.

For more information, visit montrosesar.org.

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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan