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Onion Creek Search
April 1992
About 40 people from Search Management, Mounted, Sierra West and 4-Wheel Drive were called out on Sunday, April 26, 1992, in the first major search of the spring.
Ronald and Michael, ages 35 and 45, had been fishing along Onion Creek east of Stumpy Meadows Reservoir on Saturday afternoon. When they failed to return home by 10:00 in the evening, concerned friends called the Sheriff's Department, and deputy took a report that evening. Search and Rescue was notified about 4:00 a.m. (The reason for the delay is uncertain at this time, but apparently someone in the Sheriff's Department didn't understand that we can search at night.)
From the start, it was considered likely that one or both of the men were injured, rather than lost. First, the two had reportedly fished here often and were familiar with the area. Second, fishermen seldom really get lost according to the statistics. Most follow a stream in, and plan to follow it back out again. Usually, if they don't make it back, it's because they're hurt.
When SAR took over from the Sheriff's Department, things started to happen a bit more rapidly. The Forest Service agreed to let us use their station near Quintette on Wentworth Springs Road as a base camp. (In fact, excellent cooperation between SAR and the Forest Service marked this entire incident.) Callouts went out for Mounted, then Sierra West, then Four Wheel Drive, as plans began to take shape. The command post moved to Quintette, and by the time field personnel started showing up about 8 am, it was possible to put them on teams and give them assignments almost as soon as they arrived.
Finding the PLS turned out to be a problem. Sergeant Bob Johnson had preceded everyone into the search area to meet with the RP, and had flagged the way for the incoming teams. However, in a bit of mis-communication, SAR field units didn't realize he had been issued orange and white tape. Several horse trailers, two foot teams and the communications van cruised up and down Wentworth Springs Road trying to figure out which side road to take amidst the fresh spring colors of logging company flagging. Advice received via cellular phone turned out to be distinctly un-helpful; it had the teams looking for a chip and seal road, which in the end turned out to be dirt.
Finally, a well-placed "Plum Creek" sign oriented the teams. They went one turnoff to the west and plunged south into a maze of unmarked logging roads. By this time, however, they recognized Sergeant Johnson's flagging, and under the excellent radio guidance of Cindy Honn in the communications van, everyone made it to a place called Leonardi's near Lookout Mountain.
Foot Team 1 (Paul Duer, Neal Wymer, Cheryl Williams and Mark Smith) proceeded on to make contact with the RP at the subjects' vehicle. They were pleasantly surprised to find that, for once, no one had trampled over the subject's tracks (credit here goes to Bob Johnson, no doubt.) They quickly picked up the footprints and started following them down the canyon along Onion Creek.
Unfortunately, radio contact was nonexistent over CLEMARS between the communications van at Leonardi's and the command post at the USFS station 7 miles away. Progress reports were therefore made over the Sheriff's network ("very gingerly" according to Cindy Honn).
The search ended sometime before noon, when the two subjects defied everyone's expectations and showed up alive and well at Camp Chiquita - twelve miles from their truck! The timing could not have been better in at least one way: one subject's father arrived in base camp 3 minutes before the subjects were found.
The two men said that when they were done fishing they had attempted to take a cross-country shortcut back to their truck. However, several new clear-cuts confused them about their location. They spent most of the night wandering the maze of dirt tracks that criss-cross the area, pausing for only a few hours for sleep. Temperatures overnight had been in the 40's.
All field teams were recalled and signed out by 1 pm. Most people ended this successful incident in an impromptu, leisurely Sunday afternoon picnic at "Denny's Georgetown" (the Forest Service station's lawn) with the sack lunches that they would have received in the field.
Special mention for this search should go to Sergeant Bob Johnson for a good job on (I think) his first full scale search; to Cindy Honn for a good recon job, and for coping with frustrating radio problems; to Mike Gregor for coping with the relatives, the press and his boss all at the same time; to Steve Kennedy and Karen Meschi for their first team leader assignments; to the Mounted Team for learning on the job to back those trailers around (and around, and around); and to Sandy Ruptier for doing such a good job on her first time as SAR Management person in charge of documents, finance and orange socks. (There are, no doubt, many others.) |