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Missing Family Found After 3 Days

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By JULIET WILLIAMS, The Associated Press

Published: December 20, 2007

PARADISE, Calif. - Lost for three days in the Northern California mountains, Frederick Dominguez and his three children wrote "Help" in the snow, huddled in a culvert for warmth, sang songs and prayed.

There was no way search crews on the ground were going to find them Wednesday.

The closest rescuers were two miles away and didn't know exactly where to look for the missing Christmas tree hunters. One snow-laden storm had covered the family's tracks, and an even bigger storm was hours away from burying them deeper.

The weather finally cleared up enough to make air searches possible Wednesday, but only briefly. A California Highway Patrol helicopter passed over the heavily wooded area, flying through a narrow canyon with cloud-covered mountain ridges on each side, but the crew saw nothing at first.

"We were on our last pass. That was it; the weather was pushing us out," chopper pilot Steve Ward said.

Then they saw a man atop a small bridge, wildly waving his arms amid a wilderness of white and gray.

Snow from the incoming storm was falling when the helicopter set down in 2 feet of powder and plucked the family, wet and shivering, to safety.

"It's probably the best Christmas ever," Flight Officer David White said.

The four were taken to Feather River Hospital in Paradise, where all were doing well - walking, talking and drinking hot chocolate, treating physician Kurt Bower said. He expected them to be released within hours.

"I'm surprised how good they are," he said. "There's a miracle from God in there somewhere."

They Went To Cut Christmas Tree
Their ordeal began Sunday, when Dominguez and his children - Christopher, 18, Alexis, 15, and Joshua, 12 - left church and headed to the mountains about 100 miles north of Sacramento to cut a tree for Christmas.

Because the 38-year-old father had custody of his children at the time, his ex-wife did not know they were missing until she discovered that her youngest child failed to show up at school Monday.

By the time authorities learned they were missing and began their search Monday night, the first storm had dumped 8 inches of snow around the family's parked pickup, obliterating their tracks. The family had been missing about 25 miles northeast of Chico, in the mostly rural north-central region of the state.

By Wednesday, the storm had dumped more than a foot of snow in the mountains, leaving wind-driven drifts 7 feet high in some areas.

The children's mother said she never lost hope, but inside the hospital where the four were being observed late Wednesday, she said she was frightened by the nearly continuous snowfall.

"The storm is what scared me," Lisa Sams said. "My fear was just them being cold. I couldn't stand the thought of them being cold and not eating. ... But I had a lot of hope and I just ... I couldn't think negative. I could only think positive."

'Everything Worked Out'

Dominguez ripped his sweatshirt and wrapped the shreds around his children's feet to keep them warm. They found shelter inside a culvert beneath a bridge. They were without food but found a water supply.

Dominguez moved to the rural foothill town of Paradise about a year ago from Los Angeles to be closer to his children, who live with Sams.

Sams said cutting their own Christmas tree had been a tradition for her and her children, but this was Dominguez's first time.

Authorities think that after parking his pickup along a road near the mountain hamlet of Inskip on Sunday, Dominguez likely walked downhill into the woods with his children and became lost.

It was clear at the time and for hours after the family entered the woods. The first storm wave didn't hit until Monday.

The search expanded significantly Wednesday morning, as snow had stopped falling for the first time since the family went missing.

It intensified as another Pacific storm was heading toward California. That storm, expected to bring 2 feet of additional snow, was just beginning when the helicopter crew spotted the father.

"Everything worked out in their favor, it really did," said Ward, the chopper pilot. "We were lucky."

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