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Lost man with C.B.
By Kevin Walker
How does one
begin to talk about a day that just shouldn't
have been. My Dad, Walt Walker received a call
from Capt. Ray Canova of the Banning station,
Riverside County Sheriff's Department, that a man
in his mid 20's had made contact with a Hemet
React base station via C.B. radio. The message
was quite weak, but he was able to tell the React
base operator that he was at snow level in the
Deer Springs area, he thought, and could not hike
due to blisters on his feet.
Since we had a
fairly good idea of where the lost man was,
weather conditions being excellent and the
gasoline shortage still hindering team members
response time, it was decided that Walt, John Dew
and myself would roll on this mission. We met
Capt. Canova at the Banning Airport, shortly
after that Don Landells arrived with his Bell Jet
Ranger. Walt and I quickly loaded our gear and
ourselves into the bird, and were off to Deer
Springs.
As we neared
the Deer Springs area we thought we were going to
knock this one off in a matter of minutes,
because as we made our first pass over the area,
we spotted a solo pair of tracks in the snow.
Needless to say, Don rolled the chopper back
around and then slowly followed the tracks down
the ridge to where tracks left the snow, and then
we lost the tracks. For over an hour and a half
we tried to find the tracks further down the
drainage. With no luck and low fuel, Walt and Don
decided to drop me off on a ridge in the area
where the tracks were to check and see what I
could find, while they went back for fuel.
During the 45
minutes that the helicopter was gone, I did some
looking and shouting, with no luck. Before they
returned, I made contact (via MRA radio) with
Steve Vaughn of the Hemet Search and Rescue Team.
Steve had been monitoring the rescue from their
base radio located in the Hemet Police station,
and asked it he could be of service. Since we
were getting no where, I asked if he could get
someone to help relay to us from the React
station. Since the subject had a C.B., maybe he
could transmit to Hemet and then Hemet could
relay to us 'troopies' in the field, whenever we
were close. Sound like the old hot and cold game?
When Walt and
Don returned, they sat down and left me with a
portable C. B. so that I might be able to hear
the subject.
Like I said at
the beginning, it was one of those days. For the
next two hours I listened to the relay, from the
subject to us, send Walt and Don from Black
Mountain to Little Round Valley, all the while
saying he could hear the chopper. Well needless
to say, we were getting no where fast. Daylight
would soon be a factor and we were running out of
ideas. Walt came up with one last thing to try
before darkness.
We would try a
leap frog from ridge to ridge with the C.B. and
see if I could home in on the subjects radio
signal. After three attempts with no results
(definitely a discouraging situation) Don moved
me to a ridge that looked down towards Idyllwild
on one side and the Banning highway on the other,
not even close to the search area, but what the
heck. After Don had let me out, I tried the
radio, and got a response. The hiker had made it
back around to the Idyllwild side. Sure enough, a
few minutes later Walt spotted the hiker in very
small clearing.
To make a long
story short, we flew a very relieved and totally
disoriented hiker back to Banning.
Comment:
Should our very lost friend, really have taken a
C.B.? Or should he have had a partner along?
Should he have known the country better before
going alone???
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