SASKATOON -- Cpl. Ryan Drohomereski and his police service dog Lux are always prepared to live out of their vehicle for a week. No matter the circumstances, they have to be ready to hit the road.
On the evening of Jan. 25 — when the temperature was -45 with the wind — the pair went trekking through the winter forest for two teenagers who went missing in the R.M. of Buckland north of Prince Albert. Several other officers assisted with the search.
Luckily, the two youth were found three hours after the Prince Albert detachment received the call. However, when the calls come in, Drohomereski never knows where they’ll take him or how long he’ll be gone.
“You can’t just say ‘Okay, I’m done. I’m tired. I’m going to go home now.’ Somebody is missing, that’s someone’s loved one. You have to keep going,” he said.
Drohomereski is based out of Prince Albert and serves the whole northeast area of Saskatchewan.
He described the case of the missing teens as a “life-saving issue” because of the extreme temperatures. His energetic three-year-old police dog Lux tracked about three kilometres through the forest from where they went missing.
The search ended at 10:15 p.m., when other officers found the youth on a gravel road about 10 kilometres from where they were last seen. They were brought home safely, wearing ski pants and jackets, but not proper shoes.
Drohomereski’s vehicle was stocked with everything he and Lux would need, such as food, snowshoes, extra clothing and a tent.
“My job is basically all outside,” he said. “We’re always prepared for any sort of environment, be it 35 above, or 35, 45 below.”
He explained that police dogs are trained to track the freshest human scent, typically starting from where the missing person was last seen.
“The environmental factors really don’t affect the human scent when we get into the bush as much as it would, say, in downtown Prince Albert. There’s more people, there’s more traffic.”
Drohomereski said the snow makes it easier for Lux to track in the woods. While he mainly uses his nose, the snow makes it easy to follow footprints.
Lyle Karasiuk, director of public affairs for Parkland Ambulance, said paramedics have not attended any serious hypothermia calls this winter. They have seen some cases of frost bite, though.
“As the weather progresses, with the first cold snap that we had, we started to see after a couple days a few cases of frost bite … some of those cases related to people trying to get their vehicles going because they were broken down and not properly being dressed,” he said.
He said hypothermia starts with the body shivering more and more as it becomes colder. Eventually, the body is losing heat faster than it can produce it.
“As our body temperature is dropping, we start to act strange, almost drunk-like, wandering around, maybe bumping into things, saying silly things, not making sense,” he said.
If you see someone with these symptoms who’s been out in the cold, he said it’s important to get them warm as soon as possible.
Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Karasiuk, homeless people are having a hard time finding shelter.
