‘Our Job Is Not to Give Up Hope,’ Sierra Madre Rescue Team Says

They went looking Friday for a body in the snow--and with it a sense of closure for those thought to be praying in vain for the lost teenage snowboarder from Brawley.

“That’s one of the reasons we thought we were going out today,” said Tom Burhenn, president of the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team. “But we had closure of a different kind, a much better kind.”

More like the incredible, headline-grabbing kind. Again, the spotlight fell on a band of outdoor enthusiasts who love nothing better than to scour the San Gabriel Mountains for the wayward and the wounded.

Founded 47 years ago as the state’s first mountain rescue team, the Sierra Madre squad has helped about 3,000 injured or missing people.

Its success has spawned five other rescue teams in Los Angeles County as well as similar groups throughout California.

The 25-member nonprofit Sierra Madre group operates as a civilian arm of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which by law has search duties in wilderness areas.

Team members, said Burhenn, range in age from 25 to over 50 and represent a “cross-section of middle-class life.”

They share a sense of pride of belonging to an “elite type of thing,” he said. “Not everyone can do it.”

The emphasis on self-discipline is underscored by the annual fitness test: Carrying a 40-pound backpack for four miles up a mountain in an hour and 15 minutes. Recruits who pass muster learn skills such as navigation, rock climbing and swift-water rescue.

Those who make it past probation become full members who donate about 600 hours a year toward the group.

“Our job is not to give up hope,” Burhenn said. “You go out there and you assume that you’re going to find this person . . . waiting for you.”

So it was on Friday, when to the amazement of even the rescuers, they found 14-year-old Jeff Thornton alive. Burhenn was one of the seven Sierra Madre volunteers on the ground at the time, but he was searching another canyon when two colleagues found the teenager near a creek.

“I don’t think we expected that,” said Burhenn, who arrived home with reward in mind. “I’ve got to have a shower and a beer.”