A Daring Rescue Brings My Baby Home

It seemed like a really good idea at the time.

Lately I’ve been feeling a little fatigued, having run basically the same routes all summer. Down at my local running store my buddies encouraged me to check out the Ahmanson Ranch Trails, a beautiful set of well-maintained wilderness paths that wind from the West San Fernando Valley where I live down to Malibu Canyon Road – a distance of about 16 miles round-trip.

It took me a couple of weeks, but I finally did get a chance to Google the location. Lo and behold, I was amazed to find that about 8 years ago they put a trailhead to this area within 2 miles of my house!  I double checked the location of the well-marked entrance on Friday and decided that my inaugural run would be on Sunday.

Well, Sunday morning Steve and I woke up to perfect running weather; cool and overcast with ample cloud cover – about 63 degrees. He decided that he would join me. Although Steve really doesn’t run anything longer than 3 miles, he enjoys being outside and he has accompanied me on many of these runs. He finishes up about 40 minutes before me and waits by the car, does his morning meditation – whatever.

We started out about 10:30 – late for me – but I had had a scoop of peanut butter and a banana and felt raring to go. Steve didn’t eat anything, but said he really didn’t need to. He wasn’t going to be gone that long.

When we got to the trailhead, we went over the map and planned our route…then off we went! This was a GORGEOUS wilderness run. The trail was VERY well maintained with very few mountain bikers (I’ve got nothing against them, but they get a bit aggressive at times). It was extremely quiet and I was actually somewhat surprised that there were so few people out there. I broke away from Steve after the first few minutes and told him I’d be back in about an hour.

Oh, there were ancient old oak trees and beautiful rolling hills. Hawks dove and screeched and little California field rats scurried up the sides of hills. Absolutely wonderful!  Turned out that the course Steve and I had plotted on the map was a bit hillier than I thought. Not wanting to re-injure my tender Achilles, I did walk up the steepest hills – but for the most part, I kept an easy pace and enjoyed every minute of the silence. Hard to believe that this 5,000 acre oasis was just a stone’s throw away from a massive city of 4 million people.

About 30 minutes into my run, the sun began to break through and it actually became quite hot. I remembered having decided against toting water and was a little sorry. Still, it was OK, and I found the loop back to the trailhead pretty easily and headed back to complete in a little over an hour. What a great trail! And so close to the house! I knew this series of trails was going to become a favorite.

As I rounded the trail to the parking lot I was a bit surprised that I didn’t see Steve. He’s never failed to be waiting for me, but I wasn’t really alarmed. “In the porta-potty,” I thought. I checked it out…no Steve. I walked down to the car, which was about an eighth of a mile down the entrance road. No Steve. I walked back to the trailhead. I walked down the trail about a mile. No Steve. Now I started to get concerned. It was now about 2 hours since I last saw him. I was a little later than I had planned (due to walking), but not that late. “Well, maybe he started walking home” (I had the car keys).

I got in the car and drove the route he would have taken. No Steve. Now, I started to panic. This wasn’t like him. All these years we have followed the same routine. I run, he waits. Something wasn’t right. I remembered him saying that he didn’t need to eat that morning – that he wasn’t going to be gone that long. He had no water with him. It was hot. He’s a diabetic. He had heart surgery last year. Panic turned into freaking. 

Now, I am the one who maintains a cool head in times of panic. I don’t turn into a blithering, hapless idiot or anything, but I had an intuitive sense that Steve needed help. It just didn’t make any sense. I went back to the trailhead. The few hikers coming out off the trail said they hadn’t seen him. How could that be? Maybe he was lying in a ditch somewhere and couldn’t get help. Maybe a rattlesnake?

OK. It was now over 2 ½ hours since I’d seen Steve. I’m not used to asking for help. I’m capable. I can handle it alone. No, this one I can’t handle alone. I got my cell phone. I called 911.

Now, I have never called 911 in my life. I’ve never been in an ambulance, never checked into a hospital. I didn’t know what to expect, but I called. I really needed help.

After a bit of initial confusion with the operator about my exact location, she shuttled my call to the right place and what happened next can only be described as astounding. Within 5 minutes 2 humungous fire trucks and an ambulance came screaming up the park entrance along with 2 search and rescue vehicles, the fire chief and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservation Authority Ranger Barry Slawter. All in all there must have been 15 men. They also sent the helicopters – 3 to be exact.

They asked me for a description of my beloved husband. Then they asked me what he was wearing. It was at this moment that something radically changed for me. I realized that most of the time I just rush through my day not paying attention to the wonderful, insignificant details in my life like…what is my husband is wearing? I closed my eyes.  I pictured Steve’s smiling face that morning as he came to me and said, “Ready to go Moofie?” “Gray t-shirt and gold running shorts; white Asics…I think.” The fire captain relayed this information to the search & rescue team. Then, he and I walked the trail trying to find a print of Steve’s running shoe.

“We can track people by their imprint”, he told me. He marked the print we thought might be Steve’s and circled it cairn-like, with stones. This was too much like an episode of Cold Case Files for me. It was like a really bad dream. As we walked back to the trailhead together, two helicopters came low over the next ridge, maintaining a position for a moment, then shifting slightly. Then again. Searching, searching…nothing.

Steve had now been gone for over 4 hours. The sun was hot in the sky with the temperature nearing 90 degrees. Ranger Slawter got out his cell phone and called in the dogs. “We’re going to let the dogs have a sniff at the car seat where your husband was sitting. ”They’ll take it from there. See, we have dogs for the missing and cadavers…oh, sorry – that won’t be the case here.” I don’t know why, but I laughed. I thought Steve would have thought that that was funny.

We waited as the search continued and the helicopters roared. Nearly 5 hours had passed since I last saw Steve. Suddenly, I felt that I had to talk to someone. I had Steve’s cell phone in my hand and I called one of his best friends Pam (also a runner)…and just as I did, the fire chief ran up to me. “They found him! He’s alright…just very dehydrated and weak.” They’re bringing him in in the truck. I burst into tears. It was OK now, I could fall apart.

Strangely, all the guys seemed relieved and the mood there at “home base” lightened a bit. Mmmm. Here are these men that risk their lives every day, see death and destruction all the time (especially with the hideous fires we always have in this area), and yet I could tell that they were truly relieved. I guess it’s not possible to become immune to this sort of thing when there always looms the potential for an unfortunate outcome.

I won’t bore you with the details of Steve’s condition when he was brought in except to say that his blood sugar was through the roof and he was severely dehydrated and hungry. Seems he turned the wrong way on the trail and ended up going back into the wilderness area. Thinking he was on the loop trail, he was traveling northeast – farther away from the trailhead. Unable to figure out how to get through, he had turned back the way he had come…and that’s where they found him. Not knowing whether to be mad as hell or grateful as hell I threw my arms around him there in the ambulance. “Now I know you really love me, he said. “You called out the infantry to bring me home.”

I remember reading last summer in Runner’s World about an experienced trail runner who, running with her dog, had turned her ankle and fallen off a cliff. For 4 days she lay immobile, unable to get help until her dog (who was hesitant to leave her side) coaxed assistance from a hiker.

Folks, my days of running trails without water, some nutrition and a cell phone are OVER! This is serious stuff. Even if you are “only going out for an hour” act like you are going to hike the John Muir Trail. Tell people where you are going and when to expect you back. If you are unfamiliar with the trails, take a map and run with a friend. Don’t become a statistic. Don’t make them call out the dogs.

As for the wonderful Los Angeles County firefighters and rescue workers on the ground and in the air that found my husband – a heartfelt “thank you” once again. You guys are amazing. I’ll never grumble about my tax dollars again and I promise I’ll pull over when I hear your sirens blazing. Now I know. You’re probably on your way to save someone else’s beloved and bring them home. 

Image: Me and Ranger Barry Slawter, Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

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