SOS spotted
By Walt Walker
Since I had
not attended any New Year's Eve parties, it was
with no pain, that I answered the telephone at
6:30 a.m. I wasn't behind in paying my bills, or
anything like that - you guessed it, the team was
being called out for a mission. It had been
several years since we had had an almost
traditional New Years holiday mission.
It had been reported to the Palm
Springs Police Department that a flashing light
could be seen high up into the mountains above
the city. They dispatched a patrol car to the
south end of the city. The officers soon saw the
light and it was flashing a Morse code
"S.O.S." The police department
contacted the Indio station of the Riverside
County Sheriff's Department since the light was
well out of the city limits.
Shortly before
8:00 a.m. RMRU members arrived at the corner
where the officers had observed the light from.
They had carefully lined up their car and the
ridge top, creating a line of sight. After
listening to all the information and looking at
the ridges along the line of sight, we decided
that the best thing to do was to deploy members
on the different ridges by helicopter.
Don Landells
had been previously called by the S.O. and was
already in the air. We set up a base at the
corner in front of Ann Dolley's house. In a very
short time the teams of two members were being
airlifted to the ridge tops. One of the teams reported finding
some tracks left by running shoes. They began
tracking and the helicopter searched the area
from the air.
Everyone of
the canyons leading downward were carefully
searched from the air by the helicopter. We even
searched the famous Tahquitz Canyon from the air.
Field teams were picked up by the bird and moved
to other areas to search again. Since there are
very few trees in the area, searching from the
air is very effective. However, everything was
fruitless, we could not find anyone, and nobody
was reported missing. At 3:30 p.m. we called off
the search.
|