Image Credit: Facebook / Free Bird Project

By Ashley Legassic

FREE BIRD PROJECT

Mother of Ryan Shtuka joins organization to help loved ones of missing people

Jun 11, 2019 | 4:22 PM

KAMLOOPS — There is no handbook on how to deal with a loved one going missing, but four women are turning their shared grief into something positive.

Heather Shtuka’s son Ryan went missing from Sun Peaks in February 2018. Tammy Neron’s brother Dominic and his girlfriend Ashley Bourgeault were on a small plane that went missing after taking off from Penticton nearly two years ago.

Although the circumstances in their cases differ, Tammy and Heather, along with Dominic’s sister-in-law Kate Sinclair and Heather’s friend Nicole Taylor-Vogel, are now bonded through the ”Free Bird Project” — aimed at helping others in similar situations.

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“The Free Bird (Project) was set up by Tammy Neron and Kate Sinclair,” Heather says. “Their brother and brother-in-law went missing November of 2017 on the way from Penticton to Edmonton, so they spent 10 months searching and doing a lot of drone work, helicopter, on Crown land, and then sadly the plane was found September of last year.”

While Dominic and Ashley’s families ended up getting answers, that hasn’t happened yet for the Shtukas.

Despite that, Heather hopes the loved ones of missing people will be able to rely on the Free Bird Project to help navigate in the days and weeks following a disappearance.

“What do you do when everybody goes home? And that’s inevitably what will happen,” Heather says. “As much as we want search and rescue to stay from the beginning until the end, when you’re going into a lengthy search — they’re volunteers, it’s not something that they’re going to be able to do. But families should know what their options are, should know some of the resources, where to look for dogs, where to look for search and rescues that will come out on a volunteer basis, that aren’t provincially funded, that may be able to divide some time to them.”

Tammy and Kate began the Free Bird Project in October 2018 — one month after the plane Dominic and Ashley were in was found. Since then, Heather and her friend Nicole Taylor-Vogel have joined to help guide loved ones of missing people in their search efforts.

“I remember last March when we were sitting around our command centre, thinking of the ‘what ifs’ with Ryan,” Heather says. “At that point in time, I think we were preparing ourselves for what could be an inevitable ending for us and how do (we) keep Ryan’s legacy alive, and I’m so fiercely protective of that, and I wanted to do something that sort of combined a passion that I felt, so the teaching and training that I’ve done through my work and then helping other families.

“We were fortunate enough that we had a huge network of people that have these skill sets that maybe not all families have. So I thought if I had to do something for Ryan’s legacy, it would be to help other families going through awful situations like this.”