Then the Rains Came

by John Bullaro

The telephone rang at 4 a.m. It from search and rescue; a call out for a missing two year old boy. I wiped the sleep, threw cold water on my face and dressed in my SAR uniform. I grabbed my rescue pack and headed out the door, still groggy.

The briefing was simple: The previous morning two adults and one boy child drove in a Ford pickup truck over the local mountain in the Las Padres National Forest. They were headed to Santa Margarita Lake to meet friends. When the adults and child left home the previous day it was raining unusually hard.

For the several days it had rained. As they came down the mountain into Pozo Valley the mother held the child on her lap while he slept. When the vehicle came to a usually dry creek, the driver stopped. The creek was flooded and the water flowed fast.

The driver turned to the mother and said he was considering going home. She said, "Hell, we've come this far, let's try it," meaning driving through the water and across the creek. The driver knew the truck's suspension was raised for off-road driving, so he proceeded to drive across. For some reason the two side windows of the truck were open, perhaps to get fresh air, since it was no longer raining.

Suddenly the front end of the truck dropped below the surface of the rushing water. The fast moving stream plowed through the driver's side open window and floated the child from his mother's lap. The mother screamed for the driver to stop; "My son is gone — he's in the stream." The driver warned her against leaving the truck. He then gunned the motor propelling the truck to the opposite bank. Once on the opposite bank the two adults exited the truck and commenced searching for the child.

Sometime later after frantically searching for the little boy, they failed to locate the child. The driver used his cell phone to contact the Sheriff and twenty minutes later, deputies arrived and took command of the search. After hours of unsuccessful searching, the Sergeant called out the Search and Rescue team.

The SAR team assembled at the trailer being used as a command base. Twenty ground pounders; six members of the dive team, two command staff of which I was one, and six members of the medical team, responded to the call for help. The dive team was well trained in swift water rescues. All assigned personnel began combing the rushing stream water, the dive team while wading in the water and going beneath the surface when the stream was too deep to walk. Search and rescue was now the lead search team for this.

I assigned six two person teams to re-search the length of the stream. Each team had a team leader who was in charge of their portion of the operation and would periodically radio in their position to the command staff. The individual teams progress was plotted on a master map.

The child's mother was so distraught that when she approached me in the command trailer, she could barely speak: "Please... find... my....child, please." We are prohibited by policy from promising results, only best effort, which is what I said.

"Most SAR members on this search are themselves parents. I assured the mother that no one in SAR would do any less than their very best. The mother looked pale and fatigued and seem to struggle just to breathe.

I urged the mother stay out of the command center and rest. I knew she'd want to follow the teams as they went about their assignments. She agreed to sit in the back of the trailer. She buried her face in her hands, and wailed: "How can I live when my child may be dead?' I had tears in my eyes which I hid from the mother.

The Salvation Army Truck arrived about 9 a.m. and served us and the deputies hot coffee, scrambled eggs, toast and sweet rolls, The Salvation Army often came to our missions with food and treats. That morning the hot coffee and food were most welcome. I brought the mother a cup of coffee, which she appreciated and accepted with a ,"Oh, thank you." By late afternoon our teams had been searching for almost ten hours.

Besides team deployed to the stream four two person teams we assigned to search the adjacent land area in case the child crawled out of the stream bed and wandered away. At no time were there less than six two-person teams searching.

We were grateful the rain had stopped hours earlier, although ominous rain clouds hung low overhead.. But the sense of urgency to locate the child never let up. Fatigued teams often refused to stop their searching, which I had had to stop. If allowed to continue searching when exhausted, their safety would be in jeopardy. For the safety of the team members and efficacy of their effort, rest was mandatory before they returned for another assignment.

At 5:30 p.m. I received a radio transmission from one rescue team in the stream.

The dive team entered the water and found the child wedged under a downed tree.

Carefully the dive team lifted the child from his watery tomb. When I first saw the child, I was struck by the sight; the cold water stopped any bodily changes, leaving the child looking as if it was sleeping. Then the most heart rendering scene evolved: the mother, when she saw the body of her child in the arms of the rescuer, exploded emotionally. The sight of her child looking as if was asleep caused the mother to fall to her knees and give out a mournful wail. Her hands grabbed at the sky, then slapped the ground. In my twenty years in search and rescue work I never saw such a emotionally wrenching scene. I had tears streaming down my face — and I wasn't embarrassed one bit.

When the mother was able to stand she took the child from the arms of the searcher who found him, and hugged it. She talked to the infant as if both were at home in its bedroom. She kissed the child and spoke softly as if not wanting to wake it from its nap. To this day, the scene of the mother, now holding her child, haunts me. I know there wasn't a dry eye among all the searchers.

When the County Coroner arrived the mother did not want to release her child. Finally the Coroner agreed to allow the mother and child to accompany him to the main Sheriff's office, there female deputies could be with her. We SAR members stood around, silent. The scene we just witnessed was emotionally draining and sad. Several team members sobbed. We gathered in a circle and stood still, some embracing the person next to them.

And then the rains came again.

John is an Emeritus Professor in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Studies from California State University, Northridge, and a retired Lecturer from Cal Poly. For thirty-four years he has taught classes in Commercial Recreation, Tourism Planning, Management and Leadership, and Wilderness Survival. He earned his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in Organizational Development and Curriculum Design in Higher Education.

John joined SLO search and rescue team in 1994. He moved to Los Osos in 1993 from Southern California, and now lives in Atascadero with wife, Cynthia. He completed California's Managing The Search Function and the Air Force's Inland Search & Rescue Planning. He is a National SAR trainer, and an EMT. John is a current member of the Atascadero Writer's Club and can be contacted by calling 805-440-9529 or at JohnBullaro.

Wolf Image on Banner by Don Joseph