Fallen Hiker’s Body Recovered After Outing Turns Tragic

The body of a young Garden Grove man was recovered from a remote creek bed on Monday afternoon, 20 hours after he and four friends set out for an afternoon hike to a waterfall.

Brandon Coday, 19, died in the arms of one of his friends after plunging down a steep, unstable slope above Harding Creek, several miles into the forest from the rural community of Modjeska Canyon.

The five had set out for Harding Falls about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Paul Hunter said. Coday clambered up a steep rock face about 6:30 p.m., and tumbled straight down about 500 feet.

“It’s a very steep slope, heavy terrain, heavy vegetation,” Hunter said. Two of Coday’s friends stayed with him until daybreak, officials and canyon residents said. The other two tried to hike out for help but got lost.

The first news that something was amiss came at about 6:40 a.m. Monday. Modjeska resident Michael Relyea was driving to work past the Tucker Wildlife Sanctuary when a dazed young man walked unsteadily toward his truck and reached in the window to try to touch his arm.

“Can you help me?” the young man asked Relyea. “Five of us went hiking, two of us are missing, and one of us is dead.”

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Relyea said.

The young man told Relyea that his friend, who was crying in their car at the canyon entrance, had cradled Coday in his arms until he died.

“I’ll get help right away,” Relyea responded.

Within minutes, the siren atop Modjeska Fire Station 16 was wailing, and volunteer firefighters raced up the Harding truck trail. Leaving a rescue truck by the creek bed, they hiked to the remote site and radioed back to confirm the death.

A helicopter pilot located the two missing hikers and directed them out of the canyon. Pat O’Brien, 21, and his sister Gail, 19, both of Garden Grove hiked out about 10 a.m., scratched but unharmed.

They had tried to hike out Sunday for help, got lost, and spent the night in the mountains as well.

“Somebody wanted to go rock climbing and it’s not really a good place for a rock climb,” Gail O’Brien said as she emerged. She and her brother had tried to take a shortcut, and instead got lost.

All four survivors were taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, examined and released.

Betty O’Brien said Coday was married and had a child; he was a longtime friend of her children.

“He was a great kid,” she said, crying.

It took five hours in steadily rising temperatures for rescue personnel to retrieve Coday’s body.

County firefighters with urban search and rescue units hiked and helicoptered in, but there was no place to land in the steep terrain. Sheriff’s deputies followed with machetes, a bloodhound and other rescue gear. Using ropes, rescuers finally loaded the body into a basket dangling 50 feet below the helicopter, which then flew out.

Rescue personnel urged hikers, mountains bikers and others to be prepared for the worst. Though beautiful, the rugged Cleveland National Forest can be deadly.

Thomas Pewdo, 50, slipped, fell and died while hiking in the national forest on in March 1997. Jeremy “Jake” Michael Beecher, 15, was found dead at the bottom of a ravine after he went for a solo hike during a family camping outing in 1990. He died of head injuries.

Rescue personnel bring out an injured person about once a month, Hunter said.

County search and rescue firefighter Louise Martin, who lives in Modjeska Canyon, said of the latest tragedy, “They weren’t locals, they didn’t know where they were. They came out late in the day, dressed in shorts and T-shirts. . . . The whole thing was kind of a disaster from the get-go.”

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Staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this story.