SEARCH TEAM MEMBER ALMOST A TREE stood between life and death tor the man severely injured in the recent North Shere Rescue Team (NSRT) seatch (9 rescue missing Vancouver skier Magdy Convd. While the lost skier spent ao cold night beyend the controled section of the Cypress Bowl shi area Feb. 3 and 4, rescue team member Jim Titerle, 38, almost lost his life on his birthday. Conyd had skied from the top of the north slope chairlift at Cypress, down the west side of Mt. Strachan, across the Howe Sound Crest. Trail and into the steep Montizambert Creek area. “The fact that this person knowingly skied beyond a bound- ary and commenced down a hill is annoying,’” said Gerry Brewer, in charge of the NSRT searchmaster By MICHAEL BECKER News Mepecrter committee, Titerle, a Vancouver lawyer and volunteer member of the search team for close to a decade, was tracing Conyd's ski tracks and had established voice contact with Conyd when he fost his footing at 4 a.m. after swinging around a rocky oulcropping. Titerle fell 30 feet through the air, tumbled dawn a steep icy slope for approximately 180 feet, and crashed into a tree. Titerle has spent the past week Blaze destroys suite FIRE DESTROYED a one- bedroom North Vancouver City apartment suite Tuesday night. The three sleeping occupants escaped with minor sinoke in- halation after (he tenunt sleep- ing in the living room awoke to the smell of smoke. The fire started in a chester- field in the living room. The occupet.s, and tster th: apart- ment manager, were ‘insuc- cessful in putting out ihe fire with water and an extinguisher. North Vancouver City Fire Department firefighiers, { responding just after 10 pom. to the fire at 250 Bast Ith Street, managed to contain the fire to the suite, The suite sustained heavy smoke and fice damage at ac: estimated cost of $30,000. Some smoke damage occurred in the corridor outside the suite as well, There was no smoke alarm installed in ihe suite. methe POH intensive Gare unit and is stedoan tau comdition sutfermny: muluple injures, imchuding mult ple chest complicatiens, pulmonary contusion, fractured nibs, a ruptured bladder and a rup tured Aches tendon. The mishap marks the first ume in 23 years Of operation a member of the rescue team has been seriously hurt. “| don't think he (Conyd) real- ived the severity of his situation. The area he was in leads into a series Of Cliffs."” said: North Van- couver paramedic and NSRT search member at the seene Richard Foster. NSRT volunteer members, all trained specialists in backcountry rescue, are drawn from local emergency response organizations Prada. aswell as civilians. Said) Tim Jones, North Van- couver Provingal Ambulance Ser- sme anit chief Whe vou do this hind thing for a haains as a paramedic. of firefighter or police officer, von know there are risks and they are accepted. But the public has to reahve that organiza- tions like the NSRT shouldn't have to take unnecessary risks simply because of negligent acts. People have to think twice. The question arises, ‘Was Jim's injury neces- sary?" Although well-trained and well- equipped, the element of danger for the backcountry rescuers is always there. ‘We do some pretty strange things, like flying at] a.m. trying to find a place to land in the mountains in a snowstorm,” said ot February Hl, [QMX North Stare News ACILLED FINDING LOST SKIER ;escuer had close call Brewer. He sir last sear the Team pulled ent the body of a young teen skier who was lost on the same moun tain Consd got himself inte troa- ble on The team, in conjunction with the Cypress Bowl leaseholder and provincial parks authorities, 1s sorking to mark out winter escape trails, such as along the Howe Sound Crest Trail, for skiers who find themselves beyond patrolled ski boundaries. Brewer said there are marked escape trails established on Mit. Seymour already. There are none on Grouse Mountain. ‘I's so steep most people realize they'd need 4 parachute to get down,” he said. Federal budget no big deal, say politicians, CA executive NOTHING MUCH shap- pened. That’s the local assessment of Michael Wilson’s fourth federal budget, which was delivered Wed- NORTH Vancouver-Burnady MP Chuck Cook...‘'¥t's the most bor- ing budget Canada has had in a generation.”’ nesday in the House of Commons. “It’s the most boring budget Canada has had in a generation,’’ North Vancouver-Burnaby MP Chuck Cook said Thursday. ‘*But that’s pood news The figures are delightful.” Cook said he personally con- gratulated Wilson ‘ton behalf of the 35 per cent of Canadians who smoke and the 85 per cent of Ca- nadians who drink, because this is the first budget that I can remember in which smokers and drinkers have not been hit over the head.’”’ Wilson, who told the Commons that no big announcements were needed because the federal gov- ernment is ‘‘staying the course", did announce a raise in the federal (ax on gasoline and aviation fuel by one cent per litre, effective April 1. The increase, which wilt not be applied to diesel fuel, is ex- pected to raise $300 million an- nually. Total federal expenditures will increase to $132.25 billion, up $7 CAPILANO Col- li ing to buy votes." MP Mary The government is not try- billion, and child-care expense deductions will be doubled from $2,000 to 34.000. Wilson also ordered a $300 mil- lion cut in government spending, which will help bring the federal government deficit down slightly to $28.9 billion in the 1988-89 fiscal year from the current $29.3 billion, Fred Punko, past president of the Certified General Accountants Association of B.C., said that while the federal deficit is forecast to drop slighty, ‘‘more could have been done. You can't continue year after year of deficit spen- ding.”’ Wilson’s announced cut in gov- ernment spending was also not enough, Punko said. “The government has entered its pre-election mode,’’ he said. “It's a pre-election budget.”’ In his budget speech, Wilson said economic growth would be 2.8 per cent in 1988, which is down from last year’s 3.8 per cent, but he forecast growth would rebound again in £989 to 3.2 per cent as a result of income tax reform and flower consumer prices wrought by the Canada-U.S. free trade agree- ment. Wilson said inflation will remain in the four per cent range for 1988. “Tl agree with the low-key ap- proach,” Capilano MP Mary Col- lins said) Thursday. NEWS photo Terry Peters Classified Ads.....33 Home & Garden... .27 Horoscopes........24 Mailbox .......... 7 North Shore Now. ..15 TV Listings........32 What's Going On...14 WEATHER Friday and Saturday, mainly cloudy with showers. Highs near 13°C.