He’s been with Search & Rescue for as long as I can remember. Years of training, years of risking his life, years of pushing his body into places most people wouldn’t even dare to look at. I’ve watched him walk into chaos like it was nothing. I’ve seen him carry full-grown men out of mudslides when the ground itself was breaking apart under his feet. I’ve seen him climb into roofs that were seconds from collapsing, pulling out survivors with nothing more than sheer strength and stubborn will. I’ve even seen him dive into pitch-black floodwaters without backup, when the sonar glitched and everyone else hesitated, because he couldn’t live with the thought that maybe—just maybe—someone was still down there waiting. He was fearless, relentless, almost unshakable. That’s why the photo unsettled me so deeply—because in all those years, I had never seen him look like this. His eyes, even through the blur of a satellite phone image, told me something was wrong.
