The mother of a Canadian Forces member who died in an avalanche during a training exercise in Banff National Park says she’s satisfied with the results of a report into his death.
Late Monday, the military delivered the board of inquiry report into Sgt. Mark Anthony Salesse’s death to his mother, Liz Quinn, at her family’s home in Moncton, N.B.
“It’s been long waiting,” Quinn said Tuesday in an interview.
Salesse, a 44-year-old search-and-rescue technician based in Winnipeg, died in February 2015 when he was swept off a cliff by an avalanche during a training exercise on Polar Circus — a well-known ice climbing route in Banff National Park.
Parks Canada visitor safety specialists search for Sgt. Mark Salesse at the Polar Circus ice climb.
When Salesse and his climbing partner went out Feb. 5, 2015, avalanche conditions were rated as moderate in the alpine — although the forecasts for both Banff and nearby Jasper National Park warned those conditions could change by mid-day as a storm blew in.
There were also questions about why he wasn’t wearing an avalanche beacon, an electronic device that helps locate people buried under the snow.
It took Parks Canada’s rescue team three days to get into the area because avalanche conditions were too dangerous.
When they were finally able to get on the ground, it took another three days before they were able to dig out Salesse’s body, which was found buried under several metres of snow by a rescue dog.
Salesse’s death led to the board of inquiry by the Canadian Forces, which came up with the nearly 50-page report on how to improve the safety of search-and-rescue technicians.
The recommendations:
- Include a section on human factors in mountain rescue to technical courses for search-and-rescue technicians;
- Make the Avalanche Skills Training 2 (AST2) course a prerequisite for search-and-rescue technicians;
- Create a working group to identify other requirements for search-and-rescue technicians for mountain rescue and terrain travel;
- Require technicians to update their training annually;
- Direct the use of avalanche equipment and an appropriate communications device when involved in ice climbing or backcountry skiing training in terrain with an avalanche hazard; and,
- Ensure all mountain rescue equipment be purchased with centrally controlled funding to allow for oversight, control and life-cycle management.
Quinn, who visited Polar Circus earlier this year, said she’s pleased with the final report and its recommendations.
“They covered it very well,” she said. “Not only have the recommendations been made, but they have been approved.
“They’ve also already started putting these things in progress, so that is monumental — the military sometimes does not work as fast as we’d like them to.”
Quinn said it’s been a long and difficult year since her son was killed.
“It helps that they remember him in moving things forward in a progressive way,” she said.
