Date: February 2, 2026
Location: Well Outside Ojo Caliente
Mission: NMSPR2601337-OP1
The call came in at 21:55: an elder with dementia had walked away from her home. With temperatures hovering in the low 20s and her GPS tracker battery dead, every minute was critical.
However, even the best teams face friction. Due to a coordinate entry error, our caravan found ourselves deep in the rugged terrain of the Carson National Forest instead of at the Incident Command Post (ICP). As the roads grew increasingly rough, we realized our mistake—a humbling reminder that “two is one and one is none” applies to navigation, too. We should have had a second set of eyes double-checking the destination.
We arrived at base an hour behind schedule, but the mission was far from over.
While “Oh Captain, My Captain” stayed back to provide vital comms and navigation support for the Pajarito K9 team Jesse and her handler, the rest of the Brigadiers—Da Mule, Silver Elephant, and Accelerated Trecking—were assigned an 80-acre grid of open sagebrush and rolling topography south of the subject’s home.
The subject had been missing for hours. Local police, neighbors, and her husband had already scoured the immediate area. Knowing she likely exited through the highway gate, we began our search along the road.
About a third of a mile from the house, Silver Elephant’s headlamp caught something in the dirt: a set of tracks. In the world of human tracking, you look for patterns that don’t “fit” the environment. These were shuffling, short, and uneven strides— indicators of a possible dementia gait.
We stayed on them. We lost the sign in patches of hard rock and gravel, but by circling and trusting, we picked the line back up again and again. Those tracks led us straight to her.
We found her lying on the frozen ground, wearing nothing but a bathrobe. She was conscious and responding to our shouts, but she was so physically weak that we couldn’t hear her voice until we were standing directly over her.
The team pivoted instantly into medical mode. “Da Mule” began immediate hypothermia treatment. “Silver Elephant” performed a field medical evaluation looking for any other injuries or concerns that would prevent us moving her. “Accelerated Trecking” coordinated with ICP to bring immediate resources to our location.
Because of our proximity to a road, State Troopers were able to drive a cruiser directly to us. We loaded her into the warm vehicle, and she was whisked away to the hospital with her husband.
In the rush to save her life, we had stripped off our own jackets, gloves, hats, and even a sleeping bag to wrap her against the freeze. As the cruiser sped off, our team was left in the dark, standing in the sagebrush in our base layers.
Surprisingly, the “Type 2 fun” kicked in. Fueled by the adrenaline of a successful save, we didn’t even feel the 20-degree air on the walk back to base. We had one minor complication: Da Mule’s phone was still in his jacket pocket… which was currently wrapped around the subject. Fortunately, we could track his phone via Caltopo to see exactly which hospital they had reached.
After a debrief with the incident commander, a fellow brigadier, we reunited with an officer at the hospital to retrieve our gear. We spoke briefly with her husband and learned the best news of the night: despite the hours spent on the frozen ground in a bathrobe, she suffered from only minor hypothermia.
We are incredibly grateful to have worked alongside Pajarito K9, Atalaya SAR, Taos SAR, and Skyline SAR to bring this neighbor home.