Golden Search and Rescue back in service

Search and rescue team members ina region of eastern British Columbia are once again ready to save people lost or injured in the province's backcountry.

Golden Search and Rescue suspended operations in June after the society was named in a lawsuit filed by the family of a Quebec woman.

Marie-Jose Fortin died in February after she and her husband Gilles Blackburn skied out of bounds from Kicking Horse Mountain Resort near Golden, B.C., 700 kilometres northeast of Vancouver.

Fortin, 44, died of hypothermia after the couple had been stranded for a week, two days before the crew of a search helicopter found and saved her husband.

Blackburn, 51, filed two lawsuits in May, claiming negligence and seeking damages from Golden Search and Rescue, RCMP, and the owners of the resort.

Provincial Emergency Program operations director Chris Duffy said the Golden team returned to active status Monday after concerns about the group's liability insurance were resolved.

Duffy said PEP and search and rescue groups met July 16 and reached a 15-point draft proposal to address the liability issue.

Several other civilian volunteer search groups in B.C. threatened to suspend service by mid-August if the provincial government would not pay liability insurance costs for search societies.