Alaska dive team refocuses efforts after troopers suspend search for Amanda Richmond Rogers

PALMER, Alaska (KTUU) – Inside the Silver Sky Aviation hangar at the Palmer Airport, AK Dive Search Rescue & Recover Team members Jeremy Lilly and Austin Bulawa work to empty a trailer they recently obtained. They’re stripping it down before it gets insulated with spray foam. The trailer will be used to store and haul equipment, as well as act as a warm environment to change out of wet gear.

It’s only been one day since Alaska State Troopers suspended the search for missing Eagle River woman Amanda Richmond Rogers, who fell under the ice of the river attempting to save her dog.

“It’s very hard when we don’t find someone,” Lilly said. “It’s always the thing in the back of your mind. It’s like – well what if I looked here, what if I did this.”

When Lilly founded the organization in 2016, he said he knew it wasn’t going to be easy, that much of the team’s work would be centered around recovery as opposed to rescue, and that efforts to locate a victim weren’t always going to be successful.

“Recovery, if we can do it, is the greatest thing in the world to the family because they actually know what happened, they have closure, they have someone there that they can recognize,” Lilly said. “Whereas if there’s no closure it’s like, ‘OK where are they?’ We didn’t bring them home. That kind of thing. So, that’s the challenge that comes from it.”

Despite the heartbreak that comes with not being able to recover the body of a missing loved one, the dive team continues to support search efforts in partnership with AST throughout the state and uses areas where previous searches have gone cold for training. For them, it’s an opportunity to keep looking.

The nonprofit organization also focuses on community outreach and water safety education to help prevent incidents from happening in the first place.

The nonprofit is mostly funded through public donations, and is 100% volunteer-based, organizers said. Every member pays for their own equipment, uses their personal dry gear in the field, and funds their own training, Lilly said, and it is costly.

Bulawa, who met Lilly during a training course in 2021 and is now the vice president of the organization, said he’s probably lost tens of thousands of dollars in missed work hours to go on missions.

“Ultimately, [that] does not matter to me,” Bulawa said. “It brings the ability to give closure to somebody, takes away the unknown.”

Bulawa said he’s grateful to do the work, especially in a state with bodies of water that many people use for subsistence, transportation and recreation.

Alaska’s harsh conditions take a toll on the team’s equipment. During the search for Richmond Rogers, the dive volunteers worked in sub-zero temperatures which led to a cable breaking on their sector scan sonar rendering it inoperable and in need of repair.

According to Lilly, the Department of Public Safety reimburses third-party rescue teams for things like lodging and food – but equipment repair is not a guarantee.

“It’s basically up to their discretion, but usually that’s not a problem,” Lilly said.

The problem, sometimes, is finding the funds to pay those initial costs upfront. The majority of public donations, the nonprofit receives, come from the family members of those the team has actively searched for, Lilly said.

“A lot of the families of those we’ve looked for or recovered are our biggest supporters across the board, whether we brought someone home or not, just because of the period of time we spent searching,” Lilly said.

Lilly said he insists families keep their money, but said a lot of times they won’t take no for an answer.

Such was the case for the family of Richmond Rogers, who have asked that a memorial fund be set up for people to donate to the organization as a way to honor Amanda and support the dive team’s efforts in trying to locate her.

Despite the emotional burden of such heavy volunteer work, and the stress of the financial struggles that go along with operating a nonprofit organization, both Lilly and Bulawa agree that it’s a toll worth paying – to be able to offer grieving families the closure they need.

“By performing these kinds of missions, even though they’re recoveries, the important thing is the closure,” Lilly said. “A lot of ways it gives us the closure as well as to the families.”

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