UPDATE: According to a gofundme page set up for the search, RCMP and local SAR teams will stand down the search. Read here for more details.
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The search continues for a missing Courtenay man.
Michael Gazetas has not been seen since he left his home in his red Ford Ranger pickup on Jan. 31. There has not been a lot of progress, but searchers did get a break in terms of narrowing down the area to be searched.
Search and rescue teams along with family, friends and police were focusing on the Highway 28 corridor west of Campbell River over the weekend.
They are also looking for a truck, probably some kind of service vehicle, that might have been travelling in the area around the same time as Gazetas in the hope that someone might have a clue in terms of his whereabouts. A video shows the service vehicle in the area of the Uplands gravel pit on the Gold River Highway, just before Gazetas.
”They’re trying to identify what that company might be, so they can follow up,” says Paul Berry, president of Comox Valley Ground Search and Rescue (CVGSAR).
RELATED STORY: Searchers for missing Comox Valley man Michael Gazetas seek truck owner
The search, as it stands, is being conducted by Campbell River Search and Rescue with CVGSAR assisting as part of a mutual aid agreement. In fact, there are nine Vancouver Island search and rescue teams coming from as far south as Victoria to help out, as have friends and family from the Lower Mainland.
Because there was no initial indication where Gazetas went, search and rescue could not take part, so friends and family raised money through a GoFundMe campaign to pay for private helicopter searches. As of Sunday afternoon, more than $46,000 had been brought in, while organizers kept people posted with updates online. Once the geographical scope could be limited somewhat, search teams were called in.
“We had a clue … a video of Michael’s vehicle traveling westbound,” said Berry. “That was the trigger to initiate a large-scale search.”
However, he added this is the only clue so far.
RELATED STORY: Search and rescue waits for defined area for missing Island man
More than 5o search team members, along with friends, family and RCMP, were out over the weekend looking on all roads, including logging roads, to locate Gazetas’s vehicle. Berry estimates this weekend’s effort took more than 1,100 person-hours of searcher time, and that doesn’t include additional measures such as fixed-wing and helicopter air searches.
“It’s about a 16,000-square-km search area,” Berry said Sunday afternoon. “We’re looking at every possibility. We’ve certainly had some significant challenges with the search area just because of terrain and weather.”
Also searching for Cortes man
CVGSAR is also assisting in the search for a missing Cortes Island man, Miles Meester, 20. Roughly the same number of people as on the Gazetas search are combing through vegetation on Cortes Island since Meester was last seen on Feb. 6.
“We certainly believe he’s still on the island,” Berry said.
Meester is a 5’11”, 150-lb Caucasian male with dark brown hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black hoodie and dark pants. Anyone with information should call Quadra Island RCMP at 250-285-3631 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
RELATED STORY: Police seek help in locating missing Cortes Island man
mike.chouinard@comoxvalleyrecord.com
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