Calls of Distress : Sheriff’s Elite Rescue Team Aids Victims Stranded in Mountains, Desert or Home

Mick Cordich, 21, had tried to climb a sheer, 150-foot rock face in the San Gabriel Mountains, 20 miles north of Azusa. Halfway up, the handholds petered out. He couldn’t go up, he couldn’t go down. Clad only in bathing trunks and sneakers, he was cold and tired. And stuck.

James Lawrence, 49, and Velma Jean Gilbert, 40, had been riding a motorcycle on California 138 at the remote eastern end of the Antelope Valley when a car in front of them suddenly attempted a U-turn. The motorcycle slammed into the car, flinging both of them into a roadside ditch. Both lay there, seriously injured.

Jim Boatwrite, 35, suffering from a variety of ailments that included diabetes and kidney malfunction, had missed a crucial dialysis treatment at the nearest hospital, 25 miles from his isolated Mojave Desert home. No ground transportation was available, and Boatwrite’s condition was deteriorating.

They all needed help. Soon.

It arrived quickly, from a mountaintop at the crest of the Angeles National Forest, overlooking much of Los Angeles County.

The mountain perch serves as a landing platform for the Sheriff’s Department’s Emergency Services Detail, an elite group of 21 veteran deputies who launch their rescue missions by helicopter.

571 Missions Last Year

The deputies flew 571 of those rescue missions last year, searching for lost hikers, rescuing and reviving stranded climbers and waterlogged swimmers, treating and transporting the injured and infirm and otherwise providing help in the hundreds of square miles of backcountry not patrolled frequently by ground units or covered by air rescue units from the county Fire Department.

Each member of the sheriff’s detail is trained in rock climbing and mountain rescue techniques. Each is a certified SCUBA diver and paramedic. Each has at least four years’ experience as a regular patrol deputy. And each--in the event that his mission may involve the tracking and apprehension of dangerous criminals--is a SWAT team graduate.

It takes time to acquire these skills, according to Sgt. Mark Milburn, a helicopter crew chief and one of the team leaders.

“Our average time in the department is 16 or 17 years,” Milburn said. “Our average age is over 40.”

“We’re a bunch of old fuds,” said Deputy Larry Steward, who pilots one of the big Sikorsky S-58T helicopters that carry the teams.

“But we’re in pretty good shape,” Milburn said. “Everybody runs every day. We love it. We wouldn’t be in the unit if we didn’t.”

In fact, team member Gary Wilkerson was jogging around the helicopter landing platform at Barley Flat, a 5,300-foot saddle behind Mt. Wilson, when the call came in last weekend about Cordich, the stranded rock climber.

Rapid Response

In less than a minute, Steward and his co-pilot, Jim Shuler, were at the controls of the copter, warming up the turbine engines. Wilkerson and his partner that day, Doug Dolan, were aboard the aircraft, strapping on their climbing gear. Milburn made the final checks, climbed aboard, and Air Five--the flight’s radio call--lifted off and headed east at more than 100 m.p.h.

Five minutes later, Air Five was over Buckhorn Flat, circling slowly as the three team members searched the canyon below.

“I got him,” Milburn said. “Three o’clock, below those trees.”

The other men aboard called out clearances as Steward maneuvered the helicopter slowly down between the canyon walls, Milburn watching the right and the tail, Shuler watching the left.

The rope down which the team members would climb was only 200 feet long, so Stewart had to descend as far as he could. Finally, with the 50-foot main rotor blades clearing the treetops by less than 6 feet, the pilot brought the craft to a hover.

“To hold my position, I line up a couple of trees, something like that, and get a fix on them,” Steward explained later. “It’s like lining up the sights on a rifle.”

With Steward holding the big helicopter as still as possible, Wilkerson and Dolan tossed out the rope and slid the length of it to the top of the rock face. Then, with Dolan securing another rope at the top of the face, Wilkerson descended the remaining 75 feet to Cordich, who had been clinging to the rock for close to two hours.

“He said he wasn’t hurt,” Wilkerson recalled later. “He was cold . . . tired . . . and a little embarrassed, though. . . .

“I hooked him onto my rope . . . got a little behind and below him . . . and told him exactly what to do--keep his legs in front of him and just walk slowly down the face of the rock. And that’s what he did.

“When we got to the bottom, he said, ‘Thanks. Tell everyone. Thanks.’ ”

Cordich and the two Emergency Services Detail deputies hiked the mile or so up to the Angeles Crest Highway, where Cordich, a Hollister resident, was reunited with friends. The helicopter touched down at a nearby emergency landing platform, picked up Wilkerson and Dolan, and returned for the rest of the day’s 10-hour shift at Barley Flat.

The call on the motorcycle accident came late the next afternoon.

This time, the pilot was John Bikle, the co-pilot David Kitchings. The team members were Dave Rathburn and Jim Seulke. Milburn was again the crew chief. And this time, there was a physician along--William Corey, 58, who has a private practice in internal medicine in Pasadena--one of about 50 doctors who volunteer their services as reserve sheriff’s deputies.

The helicopter reached California 138 and 165th Street East in the Pearblossom area to find Lawrence and Gilbert sprawled in the dirt, a few feet from the mangled wreckage of their motorcycle.

Passing motorists and bystanders gawked as Rathburn, Seulke and Corey dashed up, medical gear in hand, and began treating the victims on the spot.

‘The man (Lawrence) was acting kind of wild and there was blood coming out of his ear; that suggested a severe head injury,” Corey said later. “There was an obvious fracture of the left shoulder, and . . . cuts and bruises. We immobilized him, put him on a backboard, got the vital signs, started an IV, gave him oxygen, bandaged him. . . .

“The woman (Gilbert) had low blood pressure and was complaining of upper abdominal pain. We elected to treat her as though she might go into shock, and put anti-shock trousers on her and inflated them. Started up an IV. . . .”

In less than 10 minutes, the helicopter was back in the air. Because of the severity of their injuries, Lawrence and Gilbert were flown to the trauma center at the Methodist Hospital of Southern California in Arcadia, rather than to the nearer Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster.

Both victims, who live in Ontario, were admitted to the Arcadia hospital, where Lawrence was later reported in fair condition with skull and shoulder fractures and Gilbert was listed in good condition with a bruised liver and kidney, a fractured ankle and some tendon and ligament damage.

“I thought those people were phenomenal,” Gilbert said from her hospital bed. “They were all going about it in such a professional manner. I was really impressed.” The call about the dialysis patient came that same weekend.

Air Five arrived at the small home at the eastern end of Avenue Q in the Mojave Desert to find Boatwrite stretched out on a living room couch, complaining of weakness and pain. A radio call to the Antelope Valley Hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment, revealed that he was suffering from diabetes and had missed a scheduled dialysis treatment for kidney failure.

After checking Boatwrite’s vital signs and blood pressure and administering oxygen, the team bundled him onto the helicopter for the 10-minute ride to the hospital.

Once there, with their patient safely stabilized and tucked onto an examination table in the emergency room, the team enjoyed one of the perks of the job--free Popsicles from a hospital refrigerator.

There aren’t a lot of perks for the Emergency Services Detail. While the pay is good--up to about $54,000 a year--the hours are long, the work is hard. Constant training and physical conditioning are required.

And because Southern Californians like to head for the mountains and deserts on weekends, there aren’t a lot of Saturdays and Sundays off.

Nonetheless, there’s a long waiting list of applicants.

“It isn’t the pay,” Wilkerson said. “It’s the job. We love this job.”

“There’s real satisfaction,” Milburn said. “There’s some people who really need us, who are really glad to see us when we arrive.”