A search operation is underway for a Colorado man, who went missing at a Japanese ski resort.
33-year-old Mat Healy a Navy civilian went missing on a ski trip with his family. His wife is stationed at the Air Force base in Okinawa.
The search team is now the avalanche debris near the Hakuba Happo One ski resort.
Talking to reporters Amber Adams Healy’s sister explained her rush to get on a flight to Japan from a terminal at Denver International Airport.
“We have to go to Japan and just do whatever we can to find him. We have to do it, it’s my brother, he’s everything to me,” she said.
Amber is now missing for three nights. He was last seen by his wife and two kids at a ski resort in Nagano.
“He went missing. He went up on the mountain and his wife and two kids were waiting at the bottom and he never came back down,” Adams said.
Healy is an army veteran and a civilian physician’s assistant currently living in Okinawa, where his wife is stationed with the air force. Healy is also an expert skier with a love for back country terrain.
“We’re worried that it might be an avalanche or that he just got caught in a storm because they’ve had some really terrible weather lately,” Adams said.
Since he went missing on the mountain nearly two feet snow has been felt.
The Japanese rescue teams are now using helicopters and sniffer dogs in the search.
“The Japanese government has been in charge of search and rescue operations and they haven’t really allowed U.S. search and rescue teams to go in yet,” said Adams.
Till now there have been no updates from the research teams in finding Healy.
Adams said that they are hoping and praying that Amber comes home safe.
She said unlike in the United States the funding of search and rescue operations in Japan falls on the family of the missing individual.
They are being charged up to $600per searcher, per day.
That is why Amber’s family is raising money online for the efforts.
More than $40,000 had been raised as of Wednesday (21st Feb).
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