Four Calaveras County residents were rescued unscathed by San
Benito County Sheriff’s deputies and officers from the California
Highway Patrol after being lost in the Clear Creek Management Area
for 16 hours on Sunday.
Hollister – Four Calaveras County residents were rescued unscathed by San Benito County Sheriff’s deputies and officers from the California Highway Patrol after being lost in the Clear Creek Management Area for 16 hours on Sunday.
Edwin Ricketts, 34, Timothy Valvianos, 40 and each man’s 13-year-old son were found around 8am in an area in Fresno County near Wright Mountain after police located them from a helicopter, said Deputy Jeff Goodwin.
Valley Springs resident Arnold Marquez, 59, was riding motorcycles at the popular off-highway vehicle area with his two sons and grandsons when he was separated from them around 4pm, Goodwin said.
Marquez searched for the group himself for several hours, but became worried when it got dark and he still couldn’t find them, Goodwin said. He drove to Coalinga, contacted police and they notified San Benito County Search and Rescue, he said.
Goodwin and another deputy found Marquez waiting for them around 2:45am at the spot where the group had left their vehicle, and the deputies began searching the area where the group had last been seen, he said.
“A lot of the trails are inaccessible to pick-ups, so we checked the main routes until sun-up,” Goodwin said. “Shortly after sun-up we went airborne (in a CHP helicopter out of Fresno) and found them about 30 minutes later.”
Ricketts, Valvianos and their sons had gotten lost about 12 miles from where they parked their cars on a “pretty nasty trail,” Goodwin said.
After it got dark they made a campfire to keep warm and waited in the brush until the sun came up, he said. At dawn, as they were trying to make their way back to the vehicles their motorcycles ran out of gas, and when the deputies found them they were trying to transfer gas from one bike to another, Goodwin said.
“They were tired and hungry, but health-wise they were fine,” he said. “They were happy to see us, but probably a little more embarrassed.”
Marquez was able to drive his vehicle to where the group was, load the motorcycles into the truck and take his family home, Goodwin said.
When help arrived, one of the men asked the deputies, “How much do I owe you,” said Lt. Pat Turturici.
“Jeff told him we’ll be billing the county you’re from for the OT,” Turturici said. “You can come and have fun here, but if you’re from another county its going to cost your county for us to come and find you.”
