(KTLA) — A mom and her little one stranded deep within the dense Stanislaus Nationwide Forest in California late final week left a path of handwritten notes that helped their rescuers discover them, officers introduced this week.
On July 11, the 49-year-old girl and her 9-year-old son traveled from the Sacramento space to Camp Wolfeboro for an in a single day tenting journey, officers with the Calavera County Sheriff’s Workplace mentioned in a news release.
Throughout their tour, the girl was utilizing a GPS unit that provided alternate routes to their vacation spot, together with extra widespread ones. When the GPS unit misplaced its sign, the mom and son have been already nicely inside a “distant space” of the forest and have been unable to seek out their manner again out, the sheriff’s workplace mentioned.
Rescue efforts unfolded on July 12 after an individual reported that the pair had not returned or known as as anticipated.
“A deputy was dispatched to provoke a lacking individuals investigation, and the search and rescue crew was deployed to start search efforts,” officers mentioned. “The reporting social gathering additionally supplied a location obtained from a location-sharing app they beforehand used with the lacking individuals.”
Crews then started “assessing the terrain and the advanced community of interconnecting, labyrinth-like roads” to find out the place to look, the discharge mentioned.
Through the early a part of the rescue effort, a camper contacted a forest ranger to report seeing a automobile matching the outline of the misplaced campers’ car the previuos day.
“This info, together with knowledge supplied by the reporting social gathering, confirmed that the groups have been looking out within the right space,” officers mentioned.
Deputies mentioned the misplaced mom and son, whereas ready for rescue, turned on the automobile’s hazard lights at night time, and the 9-year-old additionally periodically blew a whistle in “three brief bursts, a world sign for assist.”
Then there have been the mom’s handwritten notes.
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A mom and her son have been misplaced in a distant forest space have been rescued partly due to handwritten notes they left alongside the path on July 12, 2025. (CCSO) -
A mom and her son have been misplaced in a distant forest space have been rescued partly due to handwritten notes they left alongside the path on July 12, 2025. (CCSO) -
A mom and her son have been misplaced in a distant forest space have been rescued partly due to handwritten notes they left alongside the path on July 12, 2025. (CCSO) -
A mom and her son have been misplaced in a distant forest space have been rescued partly due to handwritten notes they left alongside the path on July 12, 2025. (CCSO)
A search and rescue crew noticed the primary word within the early night on July 12.
“Assist. Me and my son are stranded with no service and might’t name 911,” the word learn. “We’re forward, up the street to the suitable. Please name 911 and get assist for us.”
Rescue crews discovered one other word a few mile away, which included the pair’s names and their telephone quantity.
The mom and son have been discovered about one other mile from the second word.
The crew then used a HAM radio to report again to a command put up.
“After broadcasting ’emergency site visitors’ on the HAM radio, their name was instantly answered by a retired El Dorado County Communications Supervisor who was a HAM operator monitoring frequencies from his house,” officers mentioned. “This HAM operator then contacted the El Dorado 911 heart, which supplied the data to Calaveras Dispatch, and the SAR command put up was notified.”
The search and rescue crew assisted the mom and her son in driving again to the command put up, the place their household was ready for them.
“Of significance within the profitable consequence was their pre-trip notification of telling somebody the place they have been going and when to count on them again,” officers added.