Missing Eight-Year-Old Twin Peaks

Written by Pete Carlson

On Monday night we received a call to help with a search for an 8-year-old boy who went missing from a school playground near Twin Peaks in the San Bernardino Mountains. We were to report to the Twin Peaks Sheriff Station at 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

Nine RMRU members plus approximately 50 other searchers from all over Southern California signed in and waited for the briefing. The San Bernardino Sheriff told everyone that the boy had gone missing at 11 a.m. on Monday and that search parties had been searching since noon Monday and all night long. The missing boy was known to be autistic and at the time that he disappeared had been wearing only sandals, shorts, and a tee shirt. He was known not to answer when called and for hiding from strangers.

RMRU members were split into several groups. I led a group of four other RMRU members and the other RMRU searchers were assigned to other teams that needed more members. Each group was given an assignment to cover a square area bounded by four GPS coordinates. We would be conducting line searches to cover the entire square. Our group went out and covered our first assignment by 11 a.m. We then returned to base and got another assignment. Around 2:30 p.m. while we were finishing our second assignment, word came over the radio that the boy had been found alive and in good shape in a steep canyon about two miles from the school.

Everyone started to return to base to sign out and head home. This was a well-run search involving over 100 people. It takes a number of people, in addition to the mountain rescue teams that went into the wilderness with the steep canyons, to run base, drive teams around to the assigned areas, walk the roads around the school and homes, and drive the fire roads. Everyone involved helped in some way to find the missing boy; without the effort of everyone the outcome may not have been so good.

Our thanks to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department who set up a good operation that had a very positive outcome.

RMRU team members present: Pete Carlson, Mike George, Mike Herman, Mark Huston, Matt Jordon, Allen Lovegreen, Rob May, Les Walker, and Dave Webb.

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