Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
Malcolm Forbes
US art collector, author, & publisher (1919 - 1990)
Have you noticed that our ability to conduct effective search and rescue operations in this county has been greatly increased by technology. I had an opportunity to utilize some of this new technology on my latest call-out.
Night Vision was something we all had heard about over the last couple of years, but never had access to it because of the expense. Well, our own Sheriff’s Aviation Division has just about finished all of their training to get the night vision program up and running. This new technology came into play with a 15 year old missing female hiker in the Dry Lake area of the San Gorgonio Wilderness on April Fools Day.
I was contacted by Sheriff’s Dispatch around 2000 hrs on April 1st, 2007 in reference to a missing fifteen year old female hiker who had wondered away from her parents during a day hike to the Dry Lake area. As you all know, the trail to Dry Lake is quite beautiful and challenging. For a hiker who does not know the trail, they could easily get on the wrong trail. This is exactly what happened in this incident.
The Espinoza Family started their day hike at the wilderness boundary near the Poop Out Hill trailhead. Taking several family photos to remember this wonderful family get together. Veronica Espinoza, the fifteen year old daughter, was a much faster hiker that her parents, and right off the bat, started to get ahead of the group. Thinking that she knew where she was going, she moved quickly up the trail, with Dry Lake as her destination. Thinking she would arrive before her parents and just wait by the lakes edge till her parents arrived.
Veronicas’ parents arrived at the Dry Lake area and were unable to locate their daughter. They were not worried right from the start. They checked the area, yelled her name, and blew their whistle to try and get their daughters attention. All this with no luck. The parents thought that their adventurous daughter may have decided to continue up the trail towards the summit of San Gorgonio, and decide to wait for the next three hours at Dry Lake for her to return.
When their daughter never showed, they started down to the vehicle hoping she would be their waiting for them. They arrived at the vehicle and their daughter was nowhere to be found. They quickly contacted the Sheriff’s Department for assistance.
Meanwhile, Veronica had gotten onto a trail just off of the Southfork Trail heading to Dry Lake. She was about two hours into her hike when she noticed that she was not climbing in elevation anymore. She stopped and waited for her parents, who never showed. She tried yelling for her parents and got no response. Veronica started to back track and return to the main trail, working her way back to the family’s vehicle.
I requested Sheriff’s Aviation via dispatch right after I received the call for the missing hiker. They arrived on scene and started to search the last known point for the missing hiker using their new night vision headsets. Around fifteen minutes later, aviation located the subject on the trail, and gave her directions to the SAR units on the ground.
Veronica had been located successfully by Sheriff’s Aviation using their new night vision. She was reunited with her parents, who had been excitingly waiting for her at the Southfork Trailhead off of Jenks Lake Rd.
Another successful search, with a big help from technology.
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