A 66-year-old man and his 14-year-old daughter are safe today following an overnight rescue in Angeles National Forest, near Milemarker 33, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
Montrose Search and Rescue Team found the duo Monday morning.
The duo walked from the Switzer Falls campgrounds along the Gabrielino trail when they found it was washed out from Station Fire damage, NBC4 reported. The two spent the night shivering over a sandbar with only a sweatshirt for the two of them.
When they didn't show up Sunday, family members contacted authorities who began the successful search.
A group of 11- and 12-year-old schoolgirls were found last night after spending hours lost in the Kaimai Ranges.
The 10 girls, who were wearing light clothing, became lost on a school orienteering exercise.
They were found in bush a two-hour walk from the nearest road after an extensive police search. The Tauranga Intermediate School pupils were to have returned at midday, but were not found until 8pm
One mother was almost overwhelmed on hearing they had been found."I'm very, very happy," she said. "Very, very relieved."
A father who had been waiting for his daughter praised the search and rescue teams, saying: "They did a fantastic job." Three police search and rescue teams and crews in two helicopters scoured an area around the Ngamuwahine Outdoor Education Lodge before finding the group about 8pm.
Sergeant Logan Marsh of Tauranga police said last night said the children were cold and tired when they were found. They came down the hill guided by spotlights as the temperature dropped to 4C.
Eleven hours after they were due out of the bush, they reached the lodge and were treated by St John's ambulance staff.
From there, they were to be taken back to the school for a late dinner treat of pizza.
They were seen smiling and waving as they left the site just before midnight.nEarlier in the evening, anxious parents were seen speeding along a gravel road towards the lodge, about 24km from Tauranga.
The commander for the Western Bay of Plenty police area, Inspector Clifford Paxton, said there was concern for the children's welfare because they were wearing only light clothing.
Conditions were clear but cold, and temperatures had been expected to drop to about 5C overnight.
"The parents were obviously very, very relieved that their children had been located," Mr Paxton said.
He said the children were found by a search and rescue team in an area which was a two-hour walk from State Highway 29. School board of trustees chairwoman Pippa Smith said the students were members of a party of about 50 Year 7 students on a school camp.
They all attend the school's bilingual Whanau Unit. School principal Brian Diver was not with the group, but went to the scene after learning what had happened.
The lodge, which is at the foot of the Kaimai Mamaku Forest Park, is owned by the school.
Its motto is "challenge through encouragement" and its activities include rock climbing, mountain biking, tramping and rafting.
The lodge website says students "will be faced with a challenging
After searching through the night and much of Tuesday, officials are still looking for a 15-year-old boy who has been missing since his mother dropped him off at Deerfield Lake to go kayaking Monday afternoon.
The Pennington County Sheriff's Department, Search and Rescue, and multiple local fire departments are searching for 15-year-old Justin Lewis around the lake. Because Lewis is from the area, the search is personal for many of the rescuers.
"They were out again this morning and his mom walked for three hours. Then we went out again and walked for two and a half hours. And we're going to be going out again," volunteer Jodi Wooldridge said.
Wooldridge is from the area and has known Lewis nearly all his life.
"He's the baby of the bunch. So everybody's out here because he's our little boy," Wooldridge said.
Even the Civil Air Patrol has been brought in to be an eye in the sky for rescuers. The search also hits close to home for them because Lewis is a CAP cadet.
"It's hard for everybody, especially when there's kids involved. But when it's one of your own, it's a little tougher," Civil Air Patrol Captain Sharon Moad said.
Because of the missing teenager's experience with the Civil Air Patrol, he's had outdoor survival training. And that's giving hope to rescuers.
"He's a survivor. He lives out here and just knows what he's doing," Wooldridge said.
"We kinda figure he's going to be injured or else he would've been able to walk out of this. But he also has had training. He knows how to take care of himself in cold weather without full survival stuff," Moad said.
But until he's found, people here are trying to keep spirits up and continue looking.
"I just think everybody just needs to be positive and we'll find him," Wooldridge said.
"Well, we just keep on searching until they tell us to stop. And if they need us to search tomorrow we'll be out here searching tomorrow," Moad said.
OTTAWA -- The Canadian Forces are filled with brave men and women, but those in the military's search-and-rescue units have a special kind of courage.
Known in the trade as SAR techs -- search-and-rescue technicians -- they train to jump out of the backs of airplanes in the worst kinds of conditions in order to save someone else's life.
But our SAR techs are being horribly let down by their political masters who, for nearly a decade, from Jean Chretien through to Stephen Harper, have failed to provide them with the aircraft they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.
On the west coast, when there's an emergency in the mountains, SAR techs hop in one of six CC-115 Buffalo fixed-wing aircraft. It's a plane beloved by SAR techs because it can get to the scene of an emergency quickly and then fly low-and-slow through mountain valleys.
But the Buffalos are ancient and old - they've been in service since the early 1970s -- and ready for the scrap heap.
One SAR tech who spoke to me said he had been involved in three aborted take-offs, twice when smoke started filling the cabin and once when oil started spewing from one of its two engines.
"The current fleet of Buffalos is dangerous to the crew and of no help to those in need," the tech told me, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In other parts of the country, SAR techs get to work in a helicopter, sometimes a CH-146 Griffon and sometimes a CH-149 Cormorant.
But the Griffon, when set up for a search-and-rescue mission, has just two hours of gas, room for just one critically injured person and no de-icing capability.
The Cormorant, meanwhile, has a long history of operational problems. "They are falling apart at the seams and there have been days where the entire fleet has been grounded," the SAR tech said.
Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale, a Progressive Conservative, is so upset with the federal government's inaction on providing robust coast-to-coast search-and-rescue capability that she's now taking direct shots at Defence Minister Peter MacKay. Last week in her legislature, Dunderdale tabled 27 pages of correspondence from her government to MacKay about the non-deployment of federal assets to help search for a Labrador teenager who went missing last year.
That teen, Burton Winters, died because no one could find him.
Was everything done that could be done to find Winters? That's a hot topic of debate right now in St. John's, but Dunderdale believes the feds let the Winters family down.
"We are not satisfied with the information, the explanations that have been given," Dunderdale told her legislature.
Dunderdale wanted to know why no Cormorants were dispatched to help search Winters.
MacKay has noted that the search was the responsibility of the province and that, in any event, federal assets had "issues" with maintenance and there was some concern that military helicopters couldn't operate in the severe weather from which Winters was never rescued.
"Federal government resources that we know do not have a dedicated responsibility for ground search and rescue in this province," Dunderdale said. "But a long-standing practice of responding when requested in a humanitarian effort in search and rescue. We do not believe that [Ottawa] lived up to that long-term practice."
It's high time federal leaders were seized with the urgency of fixing our broken search-and-rescue system.
William Hickman, the 13-year-old Burien boy who was rescued Sunday from a ledge just feet from 265-foot Wallace Falls, said that he's fortunate he walked away from the ordeal with little more than cuts and scrapes on his feet. "I think the rescuers should feel like heroes; they saved me. I'm lucky to be alive."
As the icy Wallace River pulled William Hickman inexorably toward an ultimate 265-foot plunge, the teen quickly thought of the advice from a favorite fantasy-novel character who faced a similar predicament: "Go feet first, stay to the sides and kick off the rocks."
"I didn't know what to do," the 13-year-old recalled Monday. "I thought about anything I knew about falling down a river, and I remembered the book."
After slipping into the fast-moving river during a hike Saturday afternoon above Wallace Middle Falls, Hickman heeded the advice of the book's hero and rode feet first down a 10-foot waterfall, trying to avoid the center of the river where the current was at its strongest. But he didn't avoid all rocks, grabbing one only feet from the towering falls, a move that likely saved the Burien boy's life.
And there he clung, inches above the water and precariously close to the falls, a popular Gold Bar-area hiking destination that has claimed many lives. That he was able to talk about the ordeal Monday is a tribute to the Snohomish County search-and-rescue personnel who reached Hickman and eventually used teamwork, ingenuity and a helicopter to pull him to safety.
"He was in a very, very dangerous spot," said Snohomish County sheriff's Sgt. Danny Wickstrom, who oversees the agency's search-and-rescue operations. He said almost all operations that rescuers have conducted that close to Wallace Falls involved a fatality.
In author D.J. MacHale's popular Pendragon Adventure books, fictional character Bobby Pendragon finds himself in a variety of harrowing situations. Hickman now has his own real-life amazing feat to share with classmates at Burien's Sylvester Middle School.
"I feel lucky I got through it all," Hickman said. "I think the rescuers should feel like heroes; they saved me. I'm lucky to be alive."
Hickman said trouble began almost immediately after he stepped into the river Saturday. He had planned to swim, or at least wade, in the water all afternoon. Once he saw a calm spot in the river he hopped off the trail, kicked off his shoes and walked in to his knees. His 9-year-old brother, Patrick, planned to follow.
But Hickman slipped — and was carried off. His brother, his father and his father's friend were unable to help.
Hickman replayed the advice of Bobby Pendragon when he also found himself in treacherous — albeit fictional — current. "He just went feet first and tried to stay off to the side and kicked off rocks, so he didn't hit his head," Hickman said.
The whitewater carried the teen feet first, but he wasn't able to negotiate where he wound up in the river because of the power of the current. He was carried over a 10-foot waterfall to a ledge only feet from two more waterfalls, the third a 265-foot drop.
Hickman said he managed to pull himself onto the ledge. His father, also named William Hickman, yelled words of encouragement and threw him a towel. The elder Hickman also threw him a dry T-shirt and his jacket, which Hickman wrapped around his bare legs.
His father called 911.
Once on the ledge, the teen cried. He thought he was going to die, said his mother, Heather Hickman.
Hickman's precarious perch was across the river from the hiking trail, in steep, forested terrain. In between was 20 feet of churning water that prevented rescuers from reaching the shivering teen.
Hickman's back was pressed against a steep rock overhang, and the ledge on which he balanced was so narrow that, when he crouched down, water lapped at his toes. The teen said he was incredibly uncomfortable and the river appeared to be rising on him. The overhang angled so steeply, it was impossible to stand.
A sheriff's helicopter lowered two rescuers about 200 yards downstream Saturday evening. After several attempts to swing in under the overhang, the rope sawed against the rock edge and snapped. Rescuer Oyvind Henningsen fell into the water, but a safety rope held by a second rescuer prevented him from going over the next section of Wallace Middle Falls.
As night fell, the rescue team found a spot above the falls where the current slackened enough that one man was able to get across and set up a rope line. The rest of the team held onto the rope as they crossed the river.
"I was thinking once it got dark they wouldn't be able to get to me," Hickman said.
They hiked down the hill to Hickman. Working by headlamps, the team set up ropes to lower rescuer Josh Warren down the cliff.
Ernie Zeller, part of the 50-plus-person rescue team, said he and Hickman began a dialogue by yelling back and forth. Zeller threw the teen dry clothing, a blanket, a hat, fruit snacks, Clif Bars and some hand warmers that Hickman said he couldn't get to work.
"He's a smart kid. He asked me if I had a plan," Zeller said. "A couple of seconds later he asked, 'Is your plan going to work?' "
Rescue crews weren't able to reach the boy until they used a 24-foot aluminum fire ladder as a makeshift bridge across the river. Lashed firmly at both ends, the ladder formed a stable platform for a rescuer to stand on.
With firm footing, Warren was able to get Hickman into a harness and clip him to a rope. Other team members heaved and pulled the pair up the rock face to safety shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday.
It was too hazardous to get out in the dark, and everyone was tired, wet and cold. So the group hiked for about 20 minutes, then stopped to camp. A fire was built, and everyone slept for a few hours before the helicopter returned shortly after dawn. Hickman said he remembers being extremely exhausted; rescuers said it took several tries to wake him in the morning.
Seated in the helicopter, he stared out the window at the "awesome" view. Once back on firm land, he was checked out at a hospital.
On Monday, the Sheriff's Office released a video of the rescue operation, including footage that showed how rescuers used a ladder to reach the teen.
His mother, who was not on the hike, didn't learn about her son's ordeal and brush with death until the boy's father called Sunday morning.
"His first phone call should have been 911. His second call should have been to me," Heather Hickman said. "My son could have died. I have raised my kids, and I intend to see them grow old."
She said her two sons won't venture near rivers any time soon.
William Hickman has other plans. He hopes to return to the Snohomish County trail just to see where he went into the water.
This time, he says, he has no plans to wade.
Seattle Times news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report, which includes information from Times archives.
Of course, one of the perks of helping provide support services at a hydroplane boat race, is you probably will get to see it. Alas, some of the key organizers were running the show from a remote location, but those of us with more limited responsibilities, got to see some great action. We couldn't pick our location, but everyone along the river got to a pretty good view. The bottom pictures was taken in the middle of the race course between heats.
Yesterday was the grand finale of Boatnik with the hydroplaning boats roaring up and down the Rogue River. As we do evey year, we provided traffic control, parade entries, flaggers to report boat problems during the race, ham radio scouts, ramp security, water teams of swift water swimmers and divers to assist with any water mishaps during this big event. It does take a village (or a county and its friends) to put an event like this on and we were just one of the many groups that helped make the event possible, safe and successful. Thanks to the many who contributed.
Ann McGloon and I were charged with keeping the race watchers 50 feet away from the river's edge. The river has two sides and miles of shoreline for the resourceful to use to get a good view of the race. We are fortunate to live in a nice community where most people were understanding about the safety rules and complied.
When one of the boats hit a wake and flipped, out of sight from our vantage point, we got to see the sweep boat check the driver and tow his boat out of the way to the side of the boat ramp. The driver who sustaiined a bruised wrist from the steering wheel as he was launched from his boat otherwise appeared to be in good condition. He watched the rest of the race with us with some of the spectators showing him photos of his rescue. One woman had photographed the accident from another location and brought her camera to show the driver the pics and arranged to send him pictures electronically.
A California pilot who survived a weekend plane crash with his wife and daughter said he intentionally "belly-flopped" his small plane against a snowy Idaho mountainside after its wings iced up.
"Basically we had the weather kind of close in on us," Brian Brown told KTVB-TV (http://bit.ly/L0Rpnu) in a telephone interview from St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise on Monday. The family has since been released from the hospital, hospital spokeswoman Elizabeth Duncan said Tuesday.
The firefighter from Wilton, Calif., his wife Jayann and their adult daughter Heather were traveling to Mountain Home on Saturday to visit another daughter. Brown said he saw a storm brewing, so he landed the Cessna 172 at a gravel airstrip in Rome, Ore., where there were no services. When they saw a break in the storm, they took off toward Idaho.
As they flew into the mountains of southwestern Idaho, an unexpected cold front caused the airplane's wings to ice over.
"The plane stalled. I put it into a complete nose down position to get a little bit of air speed because I saw what we were going to run into on the other side, and then I basically abruptly pushed the nose back up," which caused the plane to belly-flop against the mountainside, he said.
The impact knocked off the doors. Brown said he and his wife went through the windshield.
The family huddled inside as temperatures dropped. They didn't believe they had any way to call for help because the airplane's radio and GPS systems were not working. Several hours later, however, Brown's iPhone rang.
"You know, the divine intervention there, in that aspect of things, was just incredible," Brown told KTVB.
His daughter called 911. Rescuers, who encountered 5-foot snowdrifts, provided medical aid and started a fire until the family was airlifted out Sunday afternoon.
"We were just in a bad situation that happens, and I just really wished it hadn't happened to us," he said.
Brown, who has been flying since he was 15, said he plans to fly again.
Once in a while, someone survives without a flotation device... the odds are against this. Why play roulette?
source Hat tip: Ernie Coffman Image (not from this story)
Two 13-year-old boys who were rafting in the Kern River Sunday afternoon were rescued by Kern County Sheriff's Search and Rescue team, the Sheriff's Office reported.
The boys -- one from Bakersfield and one from Fontana -- were rafting without floatation devices when search and rescue crews were called at 4 p.m. to Hart Park.
There they found the boys north of a weir several hundred yards above Gordons Ferry Bridge. Rescue personnel threw a rope bag to the boys, and they were safely pulled to the shore. Both boys were released to family members at the scene.
Several rafters have drowned in the area of the Kern River in the past three years, according to the Sheriff's Office. On Friday, search and rescue personnel updated a sign showing a running tally of Kern River deaths since 1968 -- to 266.
Anywhere from 12,000 to 14,000 people were expected to visit the Kern River Canyon over Memorial Day weekend, officials said.
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