• American River Canyon near Cool - 2008
Most recently we worked all last night and part of this morning, Thursday, August 28, 2008, searching for a male in his 40's lost in the American River Canyon north of Cool. As a result, this morning rescuers not only found the lost subject but an unexpected bonus—his separated hiking buddy whom no one had realized was missing.
Jamey Morgan, D156, said:
There was an interesting note to this search. Upon interviewing the lost subject he advised that during the night a bear had came up to him and began smelling his body and rubbing up against him as he lay motionless on the ground terrified that he was about to be attacked. The bear than walked away and the lost subject climbed a tree and stayed there the rest of the night. After daylight, the lost subject made his way to the river to drink water and was spotted by SAR teams. CHP H-24 landed near his location and he was flown out to Sutter Roseville Hospital and is now in good condition. Thanks go out to El Dorado County SAR, Placer County SAR, and California State Parks.
Paul Duer, SAR 007, said:
SAR arrived about midnight and learned that Placer Sheriff's Department had come close to spotlighting the subject but that his cell phone connection had dropped at the last minute. They were able to point out a general area, however.
We deployed about 20 people in five teams: River right, River left, a Cliff Team, a two-person Management Team and an OHV Team on the No Hands Bridge with a big spotlight. We searched until about 3:00 a.m. from above and below with no success.
The search resumed in in the morning. About 8:30 a.m. helicopter H24 spotted the subject on river left, 200 yards downstream from the No Hands Bridge. He was near the water, curled up, not moving. A Placer SAR team arrived promptly and reported the patient was alert. H24 landed in the canyon, and the rest is history.
As if things weren't interesting enough, a few minutes earlier one of the Placer SAR teams had unexpectedly located the subject's companion on the wall of the canyon. The SAR team initially called for a rope and a stokes litter but the subject was able to reach a trail on his own with a little coaching.
We had been expecting to find D.L. so there was a little delay in realizing that there were actually two subjects and that D.L. was still missing.
Lessons learned:
The spotlight was very helpful in lighting up areas of interest for both the Cliff Team and the Foot teams. This is a technique we might want to use again.
In the hazards department, both River teams saw cat's eyes in their flashlight beams.
For the second time in a week we had some confusion in switching GPS's to latitude and longitude, and in speaking the coordinates over the air. We don't really use lat/long, but perhaps we could touch on it in class.
Radio communications have always been difficult here. It's not possible to hit ANY repeater from a handheld in the canyon. The best approach is to use simplex in the canyon and set up a relay station on the road using a high-powered vehicle radio.
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