The Unit was involved in a large search for a missing person, Nina Lewis, in September 2004 (see activations ‘Major Search’). The search came to a very sad ending when the body of Nina was found on day three in the Brisbane River. This search was the first the Unit was involved in using a GPS as a search tool. During the search the Queensland Police Service had a number of units and requested the SES to carry them into the field so that they could monitor the teams and mark the map with important findings via ‘waypoints’.

In appreciation of our assistance the Lewis family took up a collection and donated the proceedings to the SES. The unit decided to use the money to buy 9 GPS units and a program to help with tracking the searchers. We purchased ‘Garmin Geko 201’ and OziExplorer.

We were so impressed with these that the Unit's four support groups bought a further 9 making a total of 18 with a further 6 purchased privately.  As a trial run they were used first on was a forensic search (Springfield Search) a week before the Ripley Search.

The search for missing woman Jolene Mills (Jolene Mills Search) started with small searches during the week and ‘track’ records being kept of each team participating.

Saturday 23 July was the main search day with 144 SES members and a further 40 Police, Rural Fire, AMSAR and private searchers. We were given 24 search areas to search and were able to have 2 GPS units per team in the field.

A total of 104 tracks and 36 important waypoints were recoded and transferred to a map. With assistance from Ipswich City Council we have been able to use the Council GIS mapping system. Using these maps gives us the capability to conduct a search anywhere in the Ipswich City boundaries and be able to zoom in less than 1:500 with outstanding clarity.

The program and GPS units we used to record the trails and waypoints are one of many available and are not necessarily endorsed by the Unit.

This shows the search patterns of two Ipswich teams. The unsearched areas were completed at a later date.

A police officer on a small motorcycle conducted a solo search as shown above.

A very extensive number of manholes in the area had to be searched. This was carried out by a Marburg member driving a troopie
with the co-operation of council water staff.

Above shows an overlay of an extensive search carried out by a number of teams on the last Saturday of the activation.