SUNDRE — A woman in her 50s was found alive last week following a brief backcountry search involving the help of a canine unit.
Local Mounties responded on Thursday, Nov. 25 at about 7:13 a.m. to a call of a person possibly in medical distress west of Sundre in the Forestry Trunk Road area, police reported in a press release issued today (Dec. 1).
The Sundre RCMP detachment responded and located a vehicle belonging to the individual abandoned in the approximate vicinity of Marker 61.
With assistance from the RCMP Police Dog Services (PDS), which arrived on the scene at approximately 11:45 a.m., officers began the search.
Shortly afterwards by about noon — some 15 minutes after police starting tracking — a woman in her 50s was located by the canine unit roughly one kilometre into the woods at a higher elevation.
“The female was able to walk out with assistance from police. She was then transported by police to a local hospital for further assessment and treatment,” reads a portion of the RCMP’s press release.
Facilitating the search effort was a police service dog named Hoss, a six-year-old German shepherd who was trained in the RCMP breeding program near Innisfail.
“In addition to tracking and arresting criminals, canines with RCMP PDS are trained in search and rescue operations as well as drug or explosives detection.”