Rescue Volunteers Ready for New Business : Recreation: Dozens of team members are on call as hordes of hikers are hitting the trails this long holiday weekend.

Every summer, when hikers and campers take advantage of the nice weather to commune with nature, the Ventura County Search and Rescue Team prepares for more business.

Campers get lost. Hikers get hurt. Rock climbers get stranded.

All of which means the 150 volunteers are scrambling nearly every weekend to find or rescue people, mostly in Los Padres National Forest. This long weekend, with hordes of hikers expected to hit the trails, the rescue team has at least two helicopters available throughout the weekend and dozens of volunteers on call.

“Ventura County seems to be a popular place for people to come to and get lost,” said Bob Riggs, a sheriff’s official who is responsible for billing the home counties of people who get stranded or need rescuing.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Earl Matthews, who heads the rescue team, said his team is one of the busiest in the state.

“We’re probably in the top 5% to 10% in the state, activity-wise,” Matthews said. “We have nice backcountry here.”

Most of the accidents occur because hikers are not properly prepared when they bumble into the wilderness. Authorities said people often forget to leave maps or other information behind for their families in case they become lost. In some cases, people who become lost contribute to their own problems by using alcohol and drugs while climbing or hiking.

Using a combination of old-fashioned tracking techniques and modern technology, teams ford streams, cut through brush and scale cliffs to get to stranded hikers. Depending on the situation, a truck, helicopter or a horse could be used by the trained, civilian volunteers.

The team goes out on an average of about 185 rescue or search missions a year, mostly searching for missing hikers and backpackers. Not all of the volunteers can make every mission, but they are required to participate in at least 80% of the missions.

The volunteers, who are on call day or night, range in age from early 20s to their 70s, and come from all walks of life. The team’s roster includes physicians, carpenters, engineers and ranchers. Many are self-employed and have flexible schedules so they can get away for hours at a time.

“They’re Joe Citizen,” said Matthews, who is the only full-time person assigned to the team. “They’re good, down-to-earth people. It shows a desire of citizens to help citizens.”

*

Carl Hofmeister, at 73 the oldest team member, says he stays with it because he enjoys the excitement and helping people.

“It gets in your blood and you can’t get it out,” said the Ojai rancher, who is entering his fifth decade on the team. “I’ve never been able to pass up someone and not help them.”

The rescue team is divided into seven teams with varying specialties. Three concentrate on mountain searches, one is on a dive team, another does canine searches, another is a mounted posse member, plus one medical team of doctors and nurses. Depending on the type of emergency, Matthews decides which teams he wants to use, and what kind of equipment is needed.

Typically, if a person is reported missing, the watch commander will page Matthews, who interviews relatives and friends to get information on the missing person. He says age and experience level are the most crucial information he needs to decide whether to send out a search party.

“If it’s an adult male and he’s well-equipped and he’s only a few hours overdue, we don’t commit a lot of resources,” said Matthews, who has headed the team for about 20 years. “If it’s a child, that’s a high priority.”

Matthews then pages team members and leaves a message on a machine so they can call in to get information. Volunteers meet him at the search site, where they are briefed.

*

Critics say the team doesn’t respond quickly enough to some emergencies.

James L. Kinninger, a friend of a windsurfer who drowned off the Ventura County coast four years ago, said his friend Michael Kelley might have been saved if county sheriff’s deputies and firefighters had responded quickly to calls for help.

Witnesses reported to the County Fire Department that Kelley disappeared in rough seas at Mussel Shoals while surfing during Memorial Day weekend in 1990.

Only the Coast Guard responded quickly, Kinninger said in an interview after his friend was found dead. The Fire Department did not dispatch a rescue team, and the Sheriff’s Department sent a single one-deputy cruiser to see if it could spot Kelley or take witness statements.

Matthews’ search and rescue team was not called until after Kelley’s body washed up on rocks the next day. Sheriff’s officials said the search and rescue team is not dispatched unless a body is seen in the water or a vessel is spotted.

Matthews said he can only respond after the watch commander decides to page him. He said that with swimmers, his rescue team typically is useless because a person can be brain-damaged in six minutes under water.

“If someone doesn’t pull him out of the water before we get there, he doesn’t have a chance,” Matthews said.

If the situation is an emergency, Matthews sends a helicopter, which can travel 100 m.p.h. The quickest they could reach Mussel Shoals would be 10 minutes, Matthews said. Sometimes heavy fog and other weather conditions will also slow response time, he said.

A few decades ago, helicopters were not even available to the team, Matthews said. The team, which began with a few people in the 1940s, has evolved into a more sophisticated and efficient group today, Matthews said.

“It was a good old boy thing,” Matthews said. “The sheriff would call his rancher friends and they would do searches. We do searches in the Sespe now that take two or three hours that had to take seven or nine days in the ‘50s.”

Hofmeister, who has been on the team since the ‘40s, remembers that it began with horses and over time graduated to helicopters.

“We used to use houses, then we went to an old pickup, then we went to a Jeep, then we got an old Army truck, and now we have the helicopters,” he said.

Most of the people who require the team’s help are Ventura County residents, but a few each year come from other counties, Matthews said. Those counties are then billed for helicopter time and Matthews’ time. Los Angeles County receives the most bills, up to $12,000 in some years, officials said.

“They pay, but they pay somewhat reluctantly,” Riggs said.

The county of Ventura spends about $86,000 a year on the team, which includes Matthews’ salary as well as supplies for the team.

Matthews said the volunteers save the county about $446,000 a year in training and search hours. They provide their own gear and food on the missions, and the county supplies the rescue equipment.

*

To get on the team, residents send applications to Matthews, who does the initial screening. Applicants are then interviewed by team members, and must pass a background check and endure up to eight months of training. About six openings a year come up, and Matthews said he talks to about 15 people a week who are interested.

Rescue training includes rock-climbing, rappelling, first aid, helicopter tactics and map-reading skills. Depending on which team a volunteer decides to join, skills will vary.

Mark Smitley, a 36-year-old Fillmore contractor, said the down side of being on the team are the long hours and broken engagements.

“We had to do a search on Father’s Day, and all the guys had to go out,” said Smitley, who has been a volunteer since 1983. “You have to get up in the middle of the night and leave your family. Guys miss work, and they lose money. There are times they go 24 to 48 hours without sleep.”

Still, Smitley said he isn’t quitting anytime soon. He and other volunteers say they stay with it because they like helping people in trouble.

“It’s something to do for the community,” Smitley said.

Most people who are rescued or get lost are unprepared hikers, Matthews said.

He recommends that backpackers leave maps and information on their destinations with family members, and to bring a bright colored T-shirt to wave in case of emergencies. Packing extra food and water is a wise precaution, as well as some kind of lighter to make a campfire in an emergency.

Alcohol and drugs should be avoided because they sometimes cause people to try stunts they otherwise would not do.

*

In March, the rescue team had to pluck a 27-year-old Taft man from a cliff where he was stranded. His brother, who was also trying to climb the Sespe Wall, fell about 250 feet and died. Neither had extensive climbing experience, and both were trying to scale the 250-foot precipice without any climbing equipment, Matthews said.

“They used drugs the night before and they had been drinking all day,” Matthews said. “If you take alcohol or drugs, you’ll attempt things you wouldn’t normally attempt, and most of the time you’ll pay dearly for it.”

In recent years, Matthews said the biggest and most publicized search the team has done involved looking for Kellie O’Sullivan, the missing Westlake Village nurse who was found shot to death last September in a brushy area of the Santa Monica Mountains.

In addition to his own search teams, about 200 civilian volunteers were also under Matthews’ direction during that search, which lasted nearly two weeks.

Kevin White, O’Sullivan’s boyfriend, said he was so impressed by the team’s effort that he plans to begin a nonprofit fund to help it. He will solicit donations after O’Sullivan’s alleged killer, Mark Scott Thornton, is tried in her slaying.

“They’re a good group of people,” White said, referring to the volunteers. “It’s hard to believe in this day and age that people give up that kind of time. They’re unsung heroes.”