Search and Rescue Team Heads To Texas
February 4, 2003

NASA picks Kristine Crawford and Dakota to join the search for Columbia's astronauts

At 5:52 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 1, as the space shuttle Columbia flew over California on its descent toward Cape Canaveral, early risers might have seen a bright streak cross the sky. Minutes later the spacecraft disintegrated, leaving a debris field that stretched west to east 380 miles from Eastland, Texas, to Alexandria, La., and north to south 230 miles from Sulphur Springs, Texas, to metropolitan Houston.

Scattered in that massive field are the remains of the seven brave astronauts who gave their lives in the name of science and the spirit of discovery.

“We have our own local hero in this tragedy,” said Stanford Solar Astronomer Deborah Scherrer, when she called into The Forum Monday to report that Kristine Crawford and her certified search and rescue dog Dakota, were about to go to Texas to join a team charged by NASA with the difficult, and possibly dangerous, mission of bringing the bodies of those astronauts home to their loved ones.

On very short notice Crawford received word from NASA that she and her pit bull Dakota were among the 12 human/canine duos from around the country being called into the search.

Monday morning she was tracking down qualified pet sitters for Tahoe and Cheyenne (her other two pit bulls), while simultaneously fulfilling her duties at work. Later that evening she was to be picked up by a special NASA plane at NASA Ames/Moffet Field in Mountain View, and flown to Texas and the staging area for the search.

According to Scherrer, Crawford is not allowed to relay the details or even the exact location of her activities while she is on the mission, so her friends and associates are sitting tight until she returns to tell the story.

Those who have followed Crawford’s career as a search and rescue volunteer, for the Alameda County and California State Offices of Emergency Services and other agencies, know that she and her dogs are called out several times a month to assist with solving missing person cases across the state. “Almost anything you hear on the news — she’s there,” said Scherrer, listing off several recent high-profile searches that Crawford and her dogs had participated in.

“A lot of times they’re searching for missing children, lost hikers and Alzheimer’s patients who have wandered off, but the dogs can find drowning or murder victims in bodies of water like lakes, rivers and reservoirs, and sometimes they are called to find burial gounds,” she said. In missions like Crawford’s current one, in which there is no expectation that the missing person will be found alive, a dog like Dakota will be called in for its specific certification and training in forensic and human remains detection.

“The dogs are trained for this type of search and can locate things like drops of blood, small amounts of tissue, ashes from a burned body or even teeth in a field,” said Scherrer. According to Deputy Roger Kendle of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, specialized dogs like Dakota are an important tool, one of a group of tools they use in ground searches. The dogs receive extensive and ongoing training in order to qualify for this work.

“They can search very large areas in a short amount of time,” he said. “A dog like Dakota is trained to find anyone (dead or alive) in a large area.”

When the dog finds a person, it comes back and gives an alert — a signal it has learned, which indicates a find. The owner says, “Show me,” and the dog leads the way back to the site. According to Scherrer, the best search and rescue dogs are tireless. She said that Crawford and Dakota have done searches where they are in the field for over 8 hours.

There are other dangers for these heroic dogs, as was seen in the 9/11 searches when dogs were among the heroes who lost their lives in the line of duty. In the current search, some of the debris may contain explosives or be contaminated and could pose a health risk for the dogs — a concern that the K9 handlers have had to weigh in deciding whether to go out on the search. But that's why they train so much. So they know how to recognize these dangers and yet can still work affectively while avoiding those dangers.

“Not only is it volunteer work, but they pay all their own expenses,” said Scherrer. “We pay farmers to grow rice in the desert, but we can’t pay these people to go out and find a lost person? She even had to use vacation time to go. It isn’t right.”

Scherrer knows Crawford through a local organization that rescues American Pit Bull Terriers from shelters where they are on death row, or situations where they are being abused. Dakota, Cheyenne and Tahoe are distinguished members of this breed.

“I have loved and trained all kinds of animals and decided to use the animals that I love to help make a difference in the lives of others,” says Crawford in a statement on her website, www.forpitssake.org.

In 1998, when she founded her community education organization, For Pits’ Sake™, she already had two of her three well-trained dogs. She says that pit bulls are courageous, intelligent, and determined — qualities which can make them ideal for search and rescue work.

“Every search and rescue dog is tested in the same way,” said Kendle. “There is no more reason to believe a pit bull will be more aggressive than any other dog — it’s like lumping all 7-foot men into one category to make a stereotype.”

Scherrer told The Forum that Crawford volunteers herself and her dogs for search and rescue work and community education to make a difference in the lives of others. But indirectly, she is also showing the world that pit bulls can be heroes too.