After checking out the report it seems the only for sure thing she tried was cell phone texting but likely other things she had on her.

A few years ago a legally blind male was lost on the AT (think it was AT) and he was found by starting a fire as someone suggested.

Suspending a search is always a tough decision. One approach that is sometimes used is a matrix of factors to consider. The matrix doesn't make the choice for you, but does help to insure that all relevant factors are considered. Some of those factors include:

1. Survivability? - how likely is it that we can still make a live recovery?
2. Search area coverage? - what cumulative POD have we achieved for our search segments? How likely is it that we could have missed the subject in an area we searched?
3. Likelihood the subject is in the ROW (Rest of the World)? - is the subject even in our search area at all? Could this be a planned disappearance? An abduction?
4. Hazards? - how dangerous for searchers is it to continue?
5. Unresolved clues? - any clues we can follow up on? Have we found anything that would enable us to better focus the search?
6. Resource availability? - do we have enough searchers available to continue? You can burn through a lot of ground pounders in 7 days. Specialized assets such as trained dogs are usually in short supply.
7. Financial considerations? - a big one when air assets are being used. Agencies don't have infinite budgets for helo time.

It is easy to say "they should have kept at the search longer".
However, if you have searched the probable area thoroughly, and found not a single clue, what do you do then?
Search the same areas again and again?
Expand the search area to ever larger and less probable areas?
How many days can you ask volunteers to take off from work to keep searching?
What if you've already spent 3/4 of your helo budget for the year?
How long can you keep Park Rangers, Deputies, etc on the search and away from their other duties?

There are no easy answers.

No easy answers, indeed. Imagine what SAR staff have been asking themselves. In an imperfect world, you make the best call you can with the best information at hand.

I imagine that protocols are in place in these situations, helping SAR personnel make the tough decisions in the heat of the moment.

I find myself coming back to the cell phone, though. These pre-smart-phone growlers run a long, long time, especially if data services are turned off. Lack of contact with a tower makes them transmit at max power, it's true, but they are still pinging like mad. In a major metro centre, that's just noise. In a wilderness search, that's a beacon. No triangulation from towers, and privacy laws are a major factor, but this lady's transmissions were not invisible. I wonder what could be done in the "hasty search" phase?

Granted there are no easy answers, and you lay out very succinctly the many factors involved in the decision to suspend or not.

I have been in similar situations, where an unproductive search has continued and you are faced with the decision as to terminate. Two instances in my experience stand out. In both situations the intensive, ground pounding phase lasted for two weeks (in one case slightly more), followed by several efforts focused on particular localities and environments. In both cases there were very real concerns as to whether the individual sought was actually executing a planned disappearance - a question that has not been answered to this day, since both cases are still unresolved.

You mention the availability of resources, especially searchers, and this is where volunteer SAR organizations can really contribute, since an organization of reasonable size and competence can contribute bods for prolonged periods.

I don't know about the stated policy of other organizations, but the saving of lives is paramount within the National Park Service. Costs are typically minimized by using volunteers to augment a core cadre of trained staff. In or out of the NPS, I have never heard of a search being suspended because of costs.

I still feel that suspension of a search effort after seven days is cutting it off too soon. In this case, the victim was clearly still alive. It is a shame that her signalling efforts were not better or that searchers missed what might have been a significant clue.

By the way, if anyone encounters either Donald Lee Curtis or Paul Fugate, please tell them that we left a light on for them in southern Arizona.....

Not sure that privacy laws would even come into play. You wouldn't need to scan for content, just signal strength & frequency.

Another option would be to bring in several of the police operated cell towers that were in the news last year.

everyone said everything that came to my mind but when I started out canoe tripping I even took a roll of kite string to play out if I did any exploring off the portage trail.
only used it a couple times because it was a mess to deal with.

I've heard of cases where law enforcement was able to get mobile carriers to look for pings where a person or a group was missing in the wilderness.

Wow, when she stayed put, she really stayed put! While it makes sense to simply stop where you are when you get lost after a few days you would have thought she tried something after calming down and thinking out the situation.

I checked the provided coordinates on Google Earth - her camp was literally 500m from the AT and 700m from a railway bed road in heavily forested rugged terrain. She obviously didn't go much out of sight of her tent for many of those 27 days. If she had just packed up and walked in a southerly direction she might have self extracted. The K-9 search teams even missed her by even less of a distance so if she was staying really close to the tent she may not have left enough scent for the dogs to pick up. I wonder if she may have had a soft tissue injury that didn't show up in the autopsy that may have dissuaded or even prevented her from leaving her camp?

I can't speak to how things worked when you were active in SAR. I can say that in many cases these days, getting enough trained and qualified volunteers to maintain a search for longer than a week can be tough. This is especially true when there have been no clues found to suggest the subject is still alive or to focus the search in some area. It is easier to get volunteers on a weekend, but when the search extends into the work week many people find it hard to take more than a day or two off from their jobs.

I also suspect that the overall spirit of volunteerism is probably not what it once was in our country. For example I've read that many smaller communities that once relied on volunteer fire departments have had so much trouble getting enough people to join that they have been forced to go to paid departments. Many SAR teams don't have nearly as many trained/experienced members as they would like. SAR sounds exciting and glamorous, but when people find out how much work it takes to get and stay qualified, and that many missions are not glamorous, and are only Type 2 Fun (at best), they often drop out.

I doubt you will ever see any sheriff or ranger publicly admit that cost was a factor in terminating a search. However, these days virtually every public agency has less money to spend than they need. And a significant segment of the general public seems very focused on cutting government spending. You will note that here on ETS we have frequently had extended and heated debates on billing people for SAR missions.

The reallity is that when searches get long money (for supplies, helicopters, overtime for public employees, etc) does become an issue. The list of factors for suspending a search that I posted earlier was based on Chapter 16 in Find 'Em: A Guide for Planning the Missing Person Incident Response, two of the authors of which are retired NPS rangers. They also list "Political Pressures" as one of the factors.

I totally agree. In a perfect world they would have searched longer, and resource availability and cost would not be an issue. Unfortunately, state police, sheriffs, rangers, and search managers don't work in a perfect world.

I can tell you why that is, at least in my area, a few decades ago. When I first moved to Colorado, I went to several meetings and training sessions for one of the biggest SAR groups (that I am aware of) in the state. Despite being a trained paramedic and experienced hiker/backpacker/whitewater_kayaker/rock_climber, I was pretty much treated like dirt. Looked down upon. What a bunch of snobs. I stopped going after a few weeks because it seemed the folks there were nothing more than a good 'ol boys club who just wanted to stroke their own egos. Quite elitist. I found I wanted nothing to do with them. Initially I was willing and enthusiastic about learning SAR tactics and being trained so I could put some of my experience to good use. And I'm Mr. Jovial, friend of everybody, in person.

I hope all SAR teams aren't like that.