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Search for lost hunter
By
Mark Vasquez went
hunting alone on Monday October 12th. He
left his home at 4:00am and was to start
hunting for deer at about 6:00am. At
about 11:00am he was supposed to return
to his truck so he could drive home to
meet his wife for lunch. Mark never made
his lunch appointment.
That evening, his family
began to search for his truck on the
North Mountain Truck Trails between San
Jacinto and Banning. By the early hours
of Tuesday morning they had located his
truck. After doing a quick search of the
area, they drove down the mountain and
contacted authorities. All RMRU members
were paged out for the search at 4:08am.
RMRU soon located tracks
leading from the truck heading north
along a ridgeline. Additional search and
rescue teams from Riverside County and
the surrounding counties were asked to
respond. Using scent articles found in
the truck that Mark had touched, search
dogs were able to follow his scent in an
easterly direction. Hunting partners, who
had hunted with him many times before,
provided information about Mark's usual
hunting routes and habits in the area.
At about 9:40am on Friday,
October 15th, Steve
Florian and Mike Myers from China Lake
Mountain Rescue came across a single line
of tracks that matched Mark's boot. They
followed the tracks until they found a
blood stain on a rock above a narrow
canyon. They found Mark a short time
after locating the deer that he had shot
about 1.25 miles north of his truck where
he fell five days earlier. He had
apparently fallen down the steep canyon
while trying to reach the deer. He was in
serious condition due to the injuries and
the amount of time spent in the elements.
He was shivering and
dehydrated when he was found near an area
that his hunting partners refer to as
"the yellow grass". Rescue
workers refer to that area as north of
peak 3377. Rescuers hugged Mark to warm
him up until the helicopter arrived.
Mark was able to exchange a
few words with his wife Trish before
being placed in a helicopter and flown to
Loma Linda
University Medical Center. There he was treated for
dehydration, a broken hip, lacerations on
the back of his head, a skull fracture, a
concussion, and partial kidney failure.
His rifle was found in the canyon close
to where he fell. It was broken in half
from the 70-foot fall. Mark wanted to
know if they had found the deer that he
had shot.
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Follow-up
Article
One year later, lost hiker recounts
near-fatal fall
By Jose Arballo Jr.
The Press-Enterprise
It was just a few months ago, while
poring over newspaper clippings and watching
television news accounts, that it hit Mark
Vasquez. "I came very close to dying,"
said Vasquez, recalling his five-day ordeal that
started a year ago when he fell into a ravine
during a hunting trip near San Jacinto. Indeed,
Vasquez suffered a concussion and internal
injuries during his fall. His kidneys shut down
as he lay on damp ground for several days while
rescue teams scoured the rugged hills between
Gilman Hot Springs and Beaumont, east of Lamb
Canyon. A Grand Terrace resident, Vasquez was
found by a team from China Lake, one of several
search groups involved in the massive hunt.
Vasquez, 32, spent more than a week in the
hospital, and doctors said he faced a long
recovery. A year after his ordeal, Vasquez has
recovered enough to return to the sport -- and
the spot -! - that nearly took his life. The
grocery store manager spent weeks recovering from
his injuries. His kidneys and internal organs
appeared to have suffered no long-term damage. He
did lose his sense of smell and taste because of
nerve damage to his head. One foot still gives
him problems, but Vasquez said it has not stopped
him from heading back to the wilderness.
"I'm feeling pretty good," said
Vasquez, who now oversees an Albertson's store in
the desert area. "I can get around
fine." Vasquez does not remember most of
what happened after he fell into the narrow
ravine while chasing a deer he had shot. The
animal's carcass and a broken rifle were found
near the spot where Vasquez came to rest. Vasquez
was well enough to return last month to the
rugged area near North Mountain for the opening
day of hunting season. Vasquez said he got close
to the spot where he fell, but stayed away
because another hunter was there first. "It
w! as kind of weird," he said. "I did
not recognize it at first." He then headed
to Colorado for another hunting trip with his
13-year-old stepson, Kenny. His wife, Trish,
stayed behind and worried. They kept in touch
with daily cellular telephone calls from camp.
Vasquez said he sometimes thinks about how close
he came to dying. "I don't know how much
longer I could have stayed there," he said.
"Not long I think." Walt Walker, one of
the founders of the Riverside Mountain Rescue
Unit, which helped coordinate search efforts,
said organizers were talking about scaling back
operations when Vasquez was found. "I bet he
would not have lasted through the weekend,"
Walker said. "He was just incredibly
fortunate that it was relatively cool. If it had
been hot and he was out in the open, then I'm
pretty sure he would not have made it."
Daytime temperatures were in the upper 90s, but
Vasquez was at the bottom of a ravine that
remained cool b! ecause the floor did not receive
much direct sunlight. Vasquez, however, had no
water for several days. "It's pretty
interesting that he has done as well as he
did," Walker said. "It's pretty
amazing." When search teams found Vasquez,
they were looking in an area that had already
been explored. One searcher saw some blood --
they believe it was from the deer Vasquez had
shot -- then heard his moans in the distance.
"Things came together," Walker said.
"It was a lot of hard work. There was some
luck involved, too." Vasquez said he has
returned to a normal life for the most part. For
a few weeks after he was found, Vasquez said,
people recognized him on the street and asked if
he was the lost hunter. He got to meet some of
the dozens of people involved in the search and
rescue. There were calls from television shows
and writers who wanted to tell his story, but
nothing has panned out. A national tabloid
newspaper gave an accoun! t of his ordeal, but
Vasquez said he did not recognize many of the
details in the story. "Things are pretty
boring compared to that," he said.
"That's OK."
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