1 Tourist Slain, 1 Wounded at Scenic Lookout : Crime: The German couple are shot during a robbery at a mountain turnout near Idyllwild. The man, who drove half a mile to get help, is in critical condition.

A German tourist was shot to death and a man thought to be her husband was seriously wounded in an apparent robbery Monday afternoon at a scenic turnout on a mountain highway seven miles north of here, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies said.

Despite severe bullet wounds in his face and shoulder, the man managed to stagger to his rented car and drive about half a mile to a picnic area, where he attracted the attention of passersby, deputies said.

Investigators said the man, who could not speak English, wrote a note saying, “I am German,” and managed to indicate through gestures that he and the woman with him had been robbed and shot. The man was flown by helicopter to Desert Hospital in Palm Springs, where he was reported in critical condition Monday night after surgery.

Details about the attack--including the identities of the victims--were not immediately available, in large part because police still had limited information.

“Most of the information we need is hinging on his recovery and our talking to him through a translator,” said Riverside County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Lohman.

Lohman said investigators had no reason to believe the victims were targeted because they were foreign tourists.

Nonetheless, the crime was reminiscent of a series of attacks in Florida since October, 1992, that claimed the lives of nine foreigners, including four Germans, and rocked the state’s $31-billion-a-year tourism industry.

On Friday, a hotel bus carrying five Norwegians was hijacked in Miami by two men who robbed passengers of their money and jewelry.

In March, two Japanese students were shot to death during a robbery in a San Pedro parking lot, reviving Japanese concerns about the safety of foreign visitors in Southern California.

Riverside County officials declined to disclose where the German couple were staying or how they happened to be in the San Jacinto Mountains, but Lohman said their drive along Highway 243--the winding, two-lane mountain road between Banning and Idyllwild--was part of a day trip.

Lohman said the couple apparently parked their rented sedan at Indian Vista Point--a popular turnout north of Idyllwild that overlooks the San Jacinto Valley--and walked about 50 yards up an asphalt path to a large pine tree where the attack occurred.

The base of the pine tree is screened from the highway and parking lot by a knoll, so it is unlikely that anyone driving by would have seen the attack, officers said.

Deputies declined to discuss how many people are believed to have been involved in the attack, how they escaped or whether they may have left the man and woman for dead. Investigators said only that the man’s wallet was missing.

Lohman said that after the severely wounded man reached the Lake Fulmore picnic ground and summoned help, someone drove him back to the scenic turnout in a futile attempt to help the mortally wounded woman.

The driver contacted sheriff’s deputies by cellular phone, and the deputies called in the helicopter that flew the man to Desert Hospital.

The German Consulate in Los Angeles declined comment on the attack, saying it had not been contacted officially about the incident.