[PPRAANet] El Paso County SAR volunteer celebrates 50 years with organization

[Dennis N0ABC]

I don't recall seeing this on the reflector....

"Skee" is a long-time member of PPRAA and many other of the local ham 
organizations.

The link, which includes a picture, may be behind a paywall, so here is 
the text of the article.



https://gazette.com/news/el-paso-county-search-and-rescue-volunteer-celebrates-50-years-with-organization/article_ad90168a-53ec-11ee-8676-2fd7dfa5ad9e.html

El Paso County Search and Rescue volunteer celebrates 50 years with 
organization

Zachary Dupont zachary.dupont at gazette.com

Sep 16, 2023 Updated 2 hrs ago


  In 1973, Skee Hipszky, 18, became a volunteer for El Paso County 
Search and Rescue.

In 2023, Hipszky, now 68, remains a volunteer with El Paso County Search 
and Rescue, and is now by far the organization's longest-tenured volunteer.

"Sometimes you think 'wow, have that many years gone by already?'" 
Hipszky said on his 50th anniversary volunteering for the organization.

Hipszky is a former life support instructor at UCHealth Memorial 
Hospital Central, now retired, with a passion for medicine and helping 
people, who guesses that he has conducted more than 3,500 operations 
since joining the organization 50 years ago.

Those operations are often dramatically different from one to the other, 
last week in Hipszky's most recent operation he and others went to go 
help a young woman who had injured her ankle on Barr Trail and needed 
assistance getting out.

That operation was tame for Hipszky, compared to some of the other 
stories he had to tell.

Hipszky recalled in 1994 that search and rescue was tasked with helping 
a group of cross-country skiers who were seriously injured in an 
avalanche and stuck on Pikes Peak.

Hipszky and others were sent to Pikes Peak to provide medical treatment 
and begin the process of evacuation, but shortly after their arrival on 
scene an unexpected blizzard roared through with winds of over 70 mph, 
trapping everyone on the mountain.

"It was absolutely miserable," Hipszky recalled. "It literally became a 
life and death situation for rescuer as well as for the patients."

The blizzard resulted in the whole crew being trapped on the mountain 
overnight with no way to get down until the next morning, when a brief 
break in the storm allowed a helicopter to pick up everyone.

Some of Hipzsky's fellow volunteers recall working on operations with 
him where he had literally saved someone's life, operations that didn't 
even come to mind when Hipszky spoke about his own career.

Tim Hayden and Brian Kinsey have both been volunteers with El Paso 
County Search and Rescue for more than 30 years, and the pair recalled a 
time when the organization was called on to help a man who was having 
chest pains at the top of the Manitou Incline.

Hayden said that as Hipszky was arriving on scene the man went into 
cardiac arrest; another member of El Paso County Search Rescue began 
performing CPR while Hipszky used a defibrillator to keep the man alive. 
The man ended up surviving and writing about it in a blog only a week 
later, Hayden said.

Hipszky had taught the other member who had performed CPR how to do so 
only a week before the incident, according to Hayden.

"Wilderness saves like that are very rare," Hayden said. "Skee clearly 
saved that guy's life."

Those operations, as well as the more than 3,500 other operations 
Hipszky has been a part of the past 50 years, were all done entirely as 
a volunteer. El Paso County Search and Rescue is an organization made up 
of only volunteers, and the entirety of their equipment is donated, or 
bought with donated funds.

"I can't tell you how many times I've missed dinner or I've missed a 
movie, you just paid tickets to go see the movie and the pager goes 
off," Hipszky said. "I'm glad I have such a supportive wife."

It's even become a family affair for the Hipszky's, with his wife, 
Ginger, occasionally helping out the organization, doing weather 
forecasting and speaking with the National Weather Service when needed.

Currently, El Paso County Search and Rescue are finalists for the Land 
Rover Defenders Service Award, where the organization with the most 
votes gets a new Jeep Land Rover outfitted with all the necessary 
equipment for wilderness search and rescue operations.

For Hipszky, being a part of Search and Rescue has always been about 
being able to use what he loves to help people. Hipszky said that his 
love for the outdoors, love for mountain climbing and love for helping 
others is what got him to join Search and Rescue 50 years ago, and that 
those reasons are why he remains so dedicated to the organization to 
this day.

"I truly feel like this was my calling, my purpose in life," Hipszky said.

Christopher Valentine, the public information officer for Search and 
Rescue and a new volunteer to the organization talked about how 
Hipszky's experience and dedication in the organization is unmatched.

"He is a leader by example," Valentine said of Hipszky. "One of those 
people that you just know that if you have a question, he's been there, 
done that, you can you can lean on him. He's always he's always there to 
offer advice.

While Valentine hasn't experienced some of the more adrenaline-inducing 
operations that Hipszky has, Kinsey and Hayden — each with over 30 years 
of experience themselves — had similar things to say about Hipszky's 
dedication to the organization.

"He is someone you kind of wanted to emulate," Hayden said. "Always 
being there, always being available and always being prepared."

"He always seems to be the first at an operation," Kinsey said. "He's 
willing to take on any role ... and he's been a coordinator and leader 
the entire time I've been with (Search and Rescue)."

For Hipszky, he says the gratification he gets from helping others is 
more than enough reward for what he does.

Hipszky recalled how on a small handful of occasions he would be out in 
public and someone he had helped rescue in an operation would come up 
and thank him.

"I was taught by my parents to help others and not expect anything in 
return," Hipszky said. "It's really weird, but gratifying, to have 
people come up to you out of nowhere and say, 'thank you for helping 
me,' or 'you guys helped my son or my nephew on one of the trails."

Now at 50 years with Search and Rescue, Hipszky has no plans to slow 
down, joking — or perhaps saying in earnest- that he's looking forward 
to his 60th anniversary.

-- 
73

Dennis Major, N0ABC