Tom Sealander

ESCANABA — After more than 35 years, Tom Sealander has retired from his position with Delta County Search and Rescue.

“Right now we’ve got some enthusiastic young members and personnel with lots of experience too, and I’m sure I’m leaving it in good hands,” said Sealander.

Sealander’s story as a first responder began more than 40 years ago, when he and his wife were living outside of Gladstone. One summer night, he spotted a plume of smoke about a quarter-mile north of his home. When he walked over to investigate, one of the Escanaba Township Fire Department firefighters responding to the scene suggested he join the department.

Sealander was unsure at first, but he attended one of the fire department’s meetings with a neighbor.

“It seemed like a good group. Caught my interest. I’ve always been involved in mechanical things, pumps and engines and stuff like that,” he said.

Sealander became close friends with the other members of the fire department. He never left the Escanaba Township department — and has no plans to — but when he and his wife decided to build a cottage in Ensign Township, he joined a second department.

“They were short of people, and they said, ‘Hey, Tom, we’ll take you if you’re just here in the summertime,’ so I joined that one, too,” he said.

Sealander joined DCSAR not long after joining the Escanaba Township Fire Department. One of his coworkers at the Escanaba paper mill who was already on the search and rescue team invited him to attend a meeting and the rest was history.

“He invited me to come along, and I enjoyed it. It was a good crew, so I stuck around,” said Sealander.

According to Sealander, the DCSAR primarily responds to ice rescues and lost hunters. They also respond to lost children and dementia patients.

Given Sealander’s long and storied career with DCSAR, it’s not surprising he struggled to pick a most-memorable rescue, but one water rescue came to mind.

A man who was in a small boat on the Escanaba River, near the West Gladstone Bridge, tipped his boat and end up in the water alone. Neighbors along the icy shoreline spotted him and called 911. Sealander was one of the first on the scene.

“There were three or four of us on the shoreline, and we borrowed a canoe, and I was able to get in that. We tied it off the shore. I rode it out over the ice and then into the water, and this guy was able to grab onto it. He was in serious trouble. He was able to grab the front of the boat, and then I just signaled for the crew to pull me back, and they did. And I’m certain we saved his life,” said Sealander.

While Sealander said there was excitement in doing rescues, it wasn’t the primary emotion.

“At the moment you’re kind of terrified for him and yourself,” he said.

On dry land, most rescues are for people who are lost, be they people who followed inaccurate GPS directions or children who wandered too far. Other times, it’s people who are injured, like the multiple calls for people who have fallen and injured themselves on the Days River bike trail or an elderly hunter with medical conditions that needed assistance last fall.

“He was hunting and he had his dog and they were searching for him. That was up by a Rock. … He kind of knew where he was, but he’d been wandering by himself for quite a while — (the) dog was happy to see us,” said Sealander.

Sealander’s decision to step away from search and rescue didn’t come easy. On Dec. 21, while responding to the fire at the Stonehouse in Escanaba as an Escanaba Township firefighter he suffered a heart attack.

Knowing that Sealander has been a type-1 diabetic for most of his life, another firefighter who recognized Sealander was acting off asked him if he needed food to up his blood sugar. Sealander knew his sugar levels were fine, and recognized his symptoms might be signs of a heart attack.

Luckily, as is standard procedure at a fire scene, a Rampart EMS ambulance was parked nearby. Sealander walked the roughly 50 feet to the ambulance, which drove him away to OSF St. Francis Hospital. He was then transported to Marquette General Hospital.

“If I’d been home on my driveway, oh my goodness,” said Sealander.

Sealander has been doing rehabilitation since the incident but felt it was time to step back from the strenuous work of ice rescues and land searches. He doesn’t expect he’ll be leaving the fire department anytime soon.

“The fire department, I’m more of a training officer, or I can run the truck, you know, the pump, and stuff like that, but I’m not planning on throwing any ladders against buildings or busting down doors. As long as they still want me around, I’ll be around,” he said.

Sealander says he’s leaving DCSAR in good hands, under the leadership of Delta County Search and Rescue Chief Mike Mike Markovich. He said anyone interested in join DCSAR can get an application at the Delta County Sheriff’s Department.