“Mat Healy, a wonderful father of two small children, has gone missing while skiing [Hakuba Happo-one Winter Resort] in Nagano Japan. Unlike in the US, the funding of search and rescue fall on the family of the missing individual. Please help us bring Mat home safe.”
An American physician’s assistant whose wife serves in the Air Force on Okinawa has gone missing while skiing at Hakuba Happo-One Winter Resort in the Japanese Alps as reported by stripes.com. Healy’s wife, Brooke, last saw her husband at a ski resort restaurant around lunchtime Monday. Volunteers spent Tuesday searching around the ski area with no luck.
His friends and family have set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds to pay for this search and rescue’s estimated cost of $40,000 (in Japan the family of the missing is billed for rescue), so far have raised $31,130. This is from the campaign:
“Mat Healy, a wonderful father of two small children, has gone missing while skiing Happo-one in Nagano Japan on 2/19/2017. We are setting this up for Mats wife, Brooke, to help pay for the search and rescue efforts. Unlike in the US, the funding of search and rescue fall on the family of the missing individual. Please help us bring Mat home safe.
My name is Scott Fehler, I am from Littleton , CO. I started this page to raise funds for my closest friend, Mat Healy. Mat and I have been friends since the 6th grade, and I consider him like a brother. I have been corrdinating with his wife and immeadite family since Mat went missing yesterday. All funds from this gofundme page will be given to the family to cover expenses for search and rescue efforts. Thank you to everyone for your incredible generosity.”
16 inches of snow at the resort was reported on Monday and Tuesday, with temperatures on the mountain due to drop to 14 degrees overnight, with a wind-chill of 3.2 degrees. Sunshine and higher temperatures were expected Wednesday but the warmth could create instability in the snowpack and increase the risk of avalanches. Heavy snow and rain has been predicted for Wednesday evening.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Matt’s friends and family and all the rescuers involved in the search. Contribute to the his rescue fund HERE.
