A pair of handwritten notes helped California authorities track down a missing mother and her young son who were stranded in a dense, remote forest for more than 24 hours.
Tami Laird, 49, and her son Stirling, 9, left their Roseville home Friday afternoon to embark on a three-hour journey to Camp Wolfeboro, a children’s summer camp along the North Fork of the Stanislaus River, authorities said.
The pair, who were identified by the San Francisco Chronicle, followed a GPS route that led them off the beaten path and into a maze of logging trails and forest service roads, where they eventually became lost.
Traversing deeper into the woodland, Laird lost signal on her cellphone, making it impossible to retrace their steps.
After repeatedly bottoming out, the Laird’s Nissan Sentra eventually got stuck, leaving the woman and her son digging at the dirt with their hands as they tried – and failed – to free the vehicle.
By luck, Laird had stashed a stack of maps in her car and began to scrawl notes on the back while her son periodically blew a whistle three times in quick succession – an international signal for distress.
They also left a trail of rocks on the road to point in their direction in case the notes blew away, Calaveras County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Lieutenant Greg Stark told ABC News.
They tore up an old brown sheet and tied strips onto branches so they could find their way back to the car.
“HELP. Me and my son are stranded with no service and can’t call 911. We are ahead, up the road to the right. Please call 911 to get help for us. Thank you!,” Laird wrote on one piece of paper, held down by rocks and taped to the road.
“HELP. Me and my son are stranded up the road to the right. Please get help for us. Follow the strips of brown sheet. Thank you,” she penned on another.
As night fell, the woman switched on the vehicle’s hazards, her son resting next to her. “I was sick to my stomach,” she said.
By 1.20 p.m. on Saturday Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office received a missing person report filed by Laird’s family after they were unable to get her by phone.
A volunteer search and rescue team conducting training in the area was deployed to track down the mother and son.
Responders used four-wheeled utility terrain vehicles to scour the network of interconnect roads.
During the search, a deputy and a Forest Service ranger received a tip from campers who, on Friday, reported seeing a vehicle matching the description of Laird’s Nissan.
Early Saturday evening, Tony Fernandez and another volunteer came upon one of Laird’s notes along a Forest Service road, urging for help.
“I jokingly said, ‘Is that a rock with a note? ’ Not thinking she would have thought of that,” Fernandez told the Chronicle.
About a mile down the road, the team came across a second note.
Laird and her son were found in their vehicle another mile farther down the road, deputies said.
The search team was able to free the stuck vehicle and assist in bringing the mother and son back to the command post, where their family was waiting for them, deputies said.
Acknowledging that the search and rescue team was in the area, Stark said that the notes “absolutely accelerated the timeline in which they were found."
