Back from the deep : how Gene and Sandy Ralston serve the living by finding the dead / Doug Horner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horner, Doug, author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ralston, Gene.

Ralston, Sandy.

Volunteer workers in search and rescue operations--United States.

Volunteer workers in search and rescue operations.

Missing persons--Investigation--United States.

Missing persons.

Drowning victims--United States.

Drowning victims.

Volunteer workers in search and rescue operations--Canada.

Missing persons--Investigation--Canada.

Drowning victims--Canada.

Loss (Psychology).

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

307 pages : map ; 23 cm

Other Title:

How Gene and Sandy Ralston serve the living by finding the dead

Place of Publication:

Lebanon, New Hampshire : Steerforth Press, [2024]

Summary:

The dramatic story of an unlikely search and recovery duo who help law enforcement and grieving families with their uncanny knack for locating bodies underwater. A powerful debut for fans of deeply reported stories that follow real people with obsessional passions, and of authors like Tracy Kidder, Sebastian Junger, and Patrick Radden Keefe. When the police and FBI exhaust their abilities and options, and when grieving families run out of resources, their last best hope has been an Idaho couple who have spent their retirement years pursuing lost causes -- and have located 130 victims from lakes and rivers across the United States and Canada. Gene and Sandy Ralston, a married Idaho couple in their mid 70s, are self-taught underwater search-and-recovery specialists who volunteer their time and equipment. And yet the Ralstons are counted among the best in the world. The Ralstons have an uncanny knack for finding bodies in deep water and can regularly find a missing person within hours, sometimes even minutes, of launching their boat. Law enforcement and emergency response agencies seek out their peculiar expertise, but when the Ralstons' home phone rings it's usually a family member of a missing person. Someone reaching out after the local police and volunteer groups have called off the official search. Someone who heard from a friend of a friend about a couple from Idaho who will travel thousands of miles at the drop of a hat -- charging only their travel costs -- to help complete strangers.

Contents:

1. The Kathy G

2. Point of last seen

3. The march of rigor

4. Listen in the dark

5. Heavens gate to hells canyon

6. The narrows

7. Sank like a stone

8. Pay it forward

9. Master of a thousand skills

10. The path not taken

11. A body in water tends to stay in water

12. A body at rest tends to stay at rest

13. The ferryman

14. Riderless sea-doo

15. Treasure hunters

16. Black magic

17. Riderless horse

18. Scratch the surface

19. Unfriended on facebook

20. Back from the deep

21. Searching for answers

22. The past is present.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9781586423841

1586423843

OCLC:

1385293632

Publisher Number:

99996110119