From Los Angeles Times newspaper report by Tracy Wilkinson and Joel Sappel

Volunteers help tug a rubber raft from the ice hole in the center of Convict Lake back to shore. bystanders watched in stunned shock as only one person was brought out of the raft - after four people had been visible at one point floundering in the water - Review-Herald/Pierre LaBossiere Photo

CONVICT LAKE, Calif.-The screams first were heard about noon Monday out on Convict Lake.

And soon the word spread. Four teen-age boys and two counselors from nearby Camp O'Neal had been hiking across thin ice and fallen into the water. Twelve teenagers and two adults from the residential facility for troubled youths had been on a holiday outing.

With the ice cracking beneath them, frantic rescuers crawled toward two openings in the frigid water of Convict Lake where the drowning teenagers and their counselors grasped desperately for life. Three teenagers and the counselors could not be saved.

And swiftly, the efforts to rescue them became a treacherous struggle by rescuers to save each other, according to interviews with rescuers and eyewitnesses.

Clay Cutter of the U.S. Forest Service, who lived nearby, was one of the first to rush to the scene of the accident. Steadily but carefully, he made his way on hands and knees toward the center of the lake. One unidentified teen had pulled himself out, but the other three youngsters had apparently already drowned; they were no longer in sight.

Cutter was able to reach the two counselors, their heads bobbing, their arms thrashing. Perched precariously at the edge of the ice, he managed to put a rope around each man while talking to them continuously to keep them calm.

Meanwhile, summoned by their beepers, members of the Long Valley volunteer fire department hurried to the lake.

Cris Baitx, chief of the department, and Ray Turner, a captain, grabbed an aluminum flat-bottom boat and pushed it out over the ice. Suddenly, the ice broke under Turner and he fell into the water. Baitx pulled Turner back into the boat.

Crouched on a ladder to distribute his weight, Baitx pushed himself slowly over the ice toward the victims. He reached one of the counselors, known to the rescuers as "Grandpa," and started to hoist the man to safety.

Suddenly, the ice collapsed underneath them and Baitx fell into the water alongside Grandpa. Baitx, recalling the accident Tuesday from his home in Mammoth Lakes, said he found himself trapped under ice.

"I had to beat the ice out with my hands," Baitx told The Times on Tuesday. "I was sure I was gone. I was thinking of my wife and kids and are they going to be OK, because I'm history."

At this moment, volunteer fireman Vidar Anderson reached the lake and, using two ladders for better weight distribution, shimmied toward where Baitx had fallen.

Anderson grabbed Baitx-but the ice cracked again and both men plunged into the water.

"At that point, I went down again," Baitx recalled. "head-butted the ice and busted through."

Baitx would go down a third time before being rescued; Anderson, 58, would not be seen again.

Meanwhile, Cutter, too, was having difficulties. As he struggled to assist the counselors, he had slipped and fallen into the water.

"We would see a head above water, then you didn't see that head," said one of a score of horrified spectators--including Cutter's wife--who watched the operations from the lake's shore. "There would be two heads, then one. Then no one. You knew what was going on."

By this time, Russ Veenker, a diver for the June Lake Search and Rescue Team, had' arrived. Pulling a rubber raft behind him, he delicately walked onto the ice, past where Turner sat in the flatboat, tugging on a single lifeline to Baitx.

The ice cracked under Veenker's footsteps, Turner recalled.

Veenker first reached Baitx, now semiconscious, purple in color. He pulled Baitx from the water, lay him across his chest to float and stabilize him, then set him in the raft.

Then, recalled Baitx and other witnesses, Veenker turned to the other men who had been struggling to stay afloat-but no one was there. It was too late for Cutter, Anderson and the two counselors. They had lost the battle to keep their heads above water.

"They kind of lost [Cutter] right at the last," said Remington Slifka, general manager for the Convict Lake resort, who watched the futile rescue. "The diver said he thought he had him, that he really tried to hang on, but he was gone."

In the first minutes after the men and boys fell into the water, the other youngsters from Camp O'Neal continued to run out onto the ice in a panicked attempt to reach their friends.

Some would lie on the ice and try to reach into the water-until they were so soaked they had to turn back, sheriffs investigators said.

Only after rescuers warned them of the dangers could the boys be restrained. They paced the shore, watching helplessly.

"The kids were hysterical," said a 31-year-old maintenance worker from the resort who witnessed the tragedy. "Their friends were under there. They saw them dying."

All involved-the children, other counselors and many of the surviving rescuers-found themselves Tuesday grappling with feelings of anger, of guilt for having lived when close friends died, of grief.

"It was a bad scene and just kept getting worse." Baitx said. "Everybody was trying their best-but nothing was working."

More news coverage

From Review-Herald newspaper report by Kevin O. Gartland:

A trio of June Lake Mountain Rescue Team members took advantage of last week's ice rescue training seminar to try-out the team's new 'exposure suits,' which are designed to allow rescuers to remain in 32 degree water for as long as six hours without suffering the effects of hypothermia - Review-Herold/Kevin O. Gartland

Ice rescue techniques learned at Gull Lake One month to the day - and nearly to the hour - after seven people lost their lives in the icy waters of Convict Lake, local volunteers last week found themselves along side another ice-covered High Sierra lake, working to get another floundering "victim" out of the water.

But this time, the outcome was different.

Equipped with state-of-the-art "exposure suits" and an organized plan to get to the victim and get him out of the water, the "rescue" came off without a hitch. As did a second rescue effort. And a third. And a fourth.

Removed from the tragedy at Convict Lake by four weeks' time and about 30 miles, the volunteers who gathered at Gull Lake last Monday were there not to work an emergency scene, but to try and prevent a future one.

Members of the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team, several south county fire departments, the Mono County Sheriff's Office and other local emergency crews took time out from their busy schedules Monday to listen to - and learn from - Larry Ford and Dave Carle.

In the days following the Convict Lake drownings, Ford and Carle - both of them members of the JLMRT's Dive Team - had attended a day-long seminar on ice rescue at Big Bear Lake.

They came back to Mono County armed with instructional pamphlets, video tapes and a very clear message - effective ice rescue requires both proper training and proper equipment. Sadly. the seven who died Feb. 19 at Convict Lake - including the two Camp counselors and a pair of local firefighters - didn't have either.

Ford began the classroom segment of the training session by delivering a straightforward message. "The only way to be safe on the ice," he said, "is to stay off of it. Unfortunately, that's not something we can always do."

The better part of the next two hours was spent reviewing a pamphlet prepared by the International Association of Dive Rescue Specialists, a group which takes ice diving - and life-saving - very seriously.

"There's not a person here who hasn't thought about what could've been done at Convict Lake," Ford said. "We've all gone over it hundreds of times in our minds.

"The most obvious lesson to be learned here is that you can't just jump into a situation and put your tail in a sling. It's got to be done right, otherwise it shouldn't be done at all. And man-power and equipment are both very important parts of doing it right."

Emergency crews responding to the scene of an ice rescue invariably want to act immediately, Ford said, but the success of any ice rescue operation requires a quick scene evaluation and development of a good operational plan.

"You've got to consider the ice conditions, the victim's condition, the manpower you've got available and the rescue equipment that's available," Ford said.

If the victim is still above water, close to shore and able to assist in his own rescue, the first courses of action open to rescuers are the "reach" and "throw" techniques.

"If he's close to shore, you've got something to reach with and the victim is still active in the water, it's definitely worth a try," Ford said.

But in the icy cold water of most Eastern Sierra lakes, the body temperature of the ice rescue victim drops rapidly, rendering him unable to assist in saving his own life.

"If his body temperature's dropped below 95 degrees," Ford said, "you really can't expect the victim to help himself. Beyond that, we've got no choice but to `go'."

In order to safely enter the "go" mode, rescuers must be properly equipped with exposure protection, a floatation device and a line connecting him to a solid anchor on the mainland.

Vital to such a lifesaving effort are the so-called "exposure suits," which resemble oversized wet suits but which, in fact, are much more versatile.

"Exposure suits provide protection from the cold water," Ford said, "as well as floatation. One size fits all, and its worn right over your clothing. All you do is take off your shoes and jump in, and in less than a minute you're ready to go."

Exposure suits such as those purchased recently by the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team also have a built-in loop for attachment to a tether line, enabling emergency crews back on shore to pull the rescuer out of the water once he's latched-on to the drowning victim.

Despite the security offered by the exposure suits - which can keep a rescuer warm in 35 degree water for as long as six hours - Ford says there's still no room for haphazard heroics.

"You still can't be haphazard," he said, "because it's always possible to break a leg or knock yourself out on the ice. And if you get screwed-up on the way out there, you're not going to do anybody any good."

Rescuers moving across the ice toward a drowning victim should maintain a low center of gravity, and should use a "shuffling" leg motion to avoid putting undue stress on the already weakened ice. Should the ice begin to crack, however, the rescuer must drop to his knees and crawl or roll to edge of the ice hole nearest the victim.

"In a 'go' situation the rescuer has to get into the water," Ford noted, but if that rescuer is properly equipped for the task, the element of danger is greatly reduced.

In the past, ice diving efforts were geared primarily toward body recovery, and operated under the assumption that by the time rescuers arrived, the life would already be lost. But not anymore.

"Dive rescue specialists are gearing themselves more and more toward rescue these days," Carle said, "rather than simply concerning themselves with body recovery. The philosophy has changed, and now it's common for teams to work for one to two hours in the rescue mode."

The reason for this change of heart is quite simple - recent ice rescues have resulted in the saving of lives which would heretofore have been ceded to the waters.

One 18-year-old drowning victim was successfully revived recently after spending an estimated 38 minutes under the surface of the water, and a one-year-old infant was reportedly revived unharmed after spending an estimated 20 minutes beneath the surface.

The lesson here, Carle said, is that "just because they look dead, that doesn't mean they can't be saved."

In the water

After completing the classroom training, the volunteers - armed with exposure suits and all the needed safety equipment - took to the waters of Gull Lake to practice what they'd just learned.

A "victim" - also equipped with an exposure suit - was placed into a hole in the lake's ice several yards off-shore, and the crews of four took turns practicing the techniques associated with the "go" mode - techniques which might have saved a life at Convict Lake.

As advertised, the exposure suits made all the difference in the world. Without having to worry about exposure to the 32 degree water or having to work to stay afloat, the rescuers were able to latch onto the "victim," tether him to the land line, and crews onshore pulled both the rescuer and the victim out of the icy waters.

The volunteers were so comfortable in the water that one observer likened them to seals, splashing in-and-out of the water, jumping up-and-down on the ice's surface, and sliding headfirst across the ice and into the water.

"There's nothing to it," yelled one would-be rescuer to the folks on shore. "It's great."

Gearing up

The next logical step, it would seem, is for the county's many emergency response teams particularly the local fire departments - to equip themselves with the hardware needed to effect a cold water rescue, and to train their members in the finer techniques of ice rescue.

But that's easier said than done. The local departments don't have an extra $5,000 to $10,000 in their budgets to purchase the sophisticated equipment needed to properly prepare themselves, and the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team's annual $15,000 budget was gutted by the Convict Lake rescue effort.

Leaders of the team plan to go before the Mono County Board of Supervisors later this spring seeking about $20,000 in funding, money which they'll spend to purchase exposure suits, inflatable rafts, life jackets, throw lines and harnesses - all of which are needed in order to safely attempt an ice rescue.

Members of the rescue team hope that the county will grant their request, and believe it's money well spent.

"If we'd had that kind of equipment out at Convict Lake," said one team member, "we'd have been able to save everybody but the kids. Both of the firefighters - and probably both counselors as well - would probably be alive right now."

From Review-Herald newspaper report by Pierre LaBosiere

Funds requested for ice rescue suits, training Members of the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team will go before the Mono County Board of Supervisors Tuesday seeking the money necessary to properly prepare the county for future emergency ice rescue situations.

Hoping to avoid a repeat of the tragic Feb. 19 drownings at Convict Lake, the team is seeking $19,000 to pay for special ice rescue "exposure suits," other related rescue equipment and special training.

The funding request seeks a total of 22 special cold-water exposure suits, ropes, rescue collars, carabiners for ropes, two small inflatable rafts and special training for local rescue personnel from the International Association of Dive Rescue Specialists (IADRS) in Ft. Collins, Colo.

Six of the suits would go to the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team, with two suits each distributed to six Mono County fire departments. Another four suits would go to the county sheriff's office. The sheriff's office would have two suits placed in the Bridgeport station and two in the substation east of Mammoth Lakes.

Two members of the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team, Dave Carle and Larry Ford, attended a day-long IADRS ice rescue seminar at Big Bear Lake recently, gaining information on proper training and equipment needed for dangerous ice rescues. Ford and Carle also conducted a recent training session at Gull Lake, taking the information they gained at Big Bear and passing it along to local firefighters and members of the mountain rescue team.

Videotapes from the IADRS were shown, and firefighters were shown how to use the cold water suits. Even Chris Baitx, chief of the Long Valley Fire Department, who nearly died in the freezing water at Convict Lake, tried out a suit in Gull Lake.

"Chris was very unsure about whether he would go in," Ford said. "He put the suit on, and played in the hole in the ice for a while. That was real important for him to do that."

Ford, head of the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team diving unit, prepared the request package along with Doug McGee. He said "the plan is to get every first responder equipped" for ice rescue.

Ford said the special cold water exposure suits would allow rescue people to stay in freezing water for up to six hours. These suits would be helpful not only for ice rescue, but also for cold water rescue in non-frozen rivers and lakes, Ford said.

Padded rescue "collars," four of which are being requested for the mountain rescue team, hook under a victim's arms and allow the victim to be pulled more safely and comfortably than if a rope was used.

Two small nine to 10-foot inflatable boats are also part of the package. Ford said one of the problems faced by rescuers at Convict Lake was that they did not have a small inflatable raft that was easy to handle.

Also part of the package are three personal floatation devices, basically life jackets, and a "throw bag," which would allow a rescuer to throw a rope up to 50 or 60 feet.

Another $2,000 would go for further training from the IADRS, so that as many local firefighters, paramedics and rescue personnel as possible get ice and cold water rescue training.

Ford said that ice deaths are extremely rare, but after the experience at Convict Lake, rescuers should be trained and equipped for the worst possible situation.

"We've had lots of rescues, but very few ice deaths," Ford said. "But the use of frozen lakes is becoming more extensive. There's a lot of ice skating, a lot of cross-country skiing.

From Review-Herald newspaper report by Pierre LaBossiere:

One dead, one hurt in Tioga rollover One man was killed and another seriously injured Thursday afternoon when their pickup truck left the roadway on Tioga Pass road and rolled several hundred feet down Lee Vining Canyon.

Dead at the scene was the passenger in the pickup, Richard Gianechini, 24, of Livermore. The driver, David Barry, 20, of Fremont, sustained major injuries and was taken to Washoe Medical Center in Reno, where he is listed in serious-but-stable condition in the Intensive Care Unit.

According to California Highway Patrol Officer Doug Northington, Barry was driving the 1985 Toyota pickup eastbound on Tioga Pass Road at about 5:42 p.m. when, for unknown reasons, his vehicle left the roadway about four miles west of Lee Vining and rolled down into the canyon.

The truck rolled numerous times, coming to a rest several hundred feet below the highway. Both Barry and Gianechini were ejected from the vehicle, Northington said.

The CHP, Mono County Sheriff's Office, a Yosemite National Park helicopter, the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team, and Lee Vining Fire Department were all called to the scene to assist in the rescue effort.

June Lake Mountain Rescue Team member Igor Vorobyoff said the victims could not be seen from the roadway. However, as rescuers descended the 50-degree slope of the canyon, they found the two men in the path of the pickup.

Vorobyoff said rescuers found Barry about 300 feet down the slope, and discovered Gianechini's body about 400 feet down. He estimated that the vehicle had rolled about 200 feet beyond where Gianechini was found.

Vorobyoff said Barry was secured in a litter and lifted out of the canyon by the helicopter. Barry was unconscious most of the time during the rescue, Vorobyoff said.

At one point Barry began referring to another person, leading rescuers to believe there might be a third victim in the canyon, Vorobyoff said. However, no other victims were discovered during a search of the canyon.

After Barry was airlifted out of the canyon, rescuers began working to retrieve Gianechini as well. The dead man's body was eventually secured into another litter, and it, too, was removed by helicopter.

In all, the rescue effort took about 2 1/2 hours, Vorobyoff said.

From Review-Herald newspaper report by Barbara Ferrey:

Lightning injures 15 hikers A weekend of relaxation and fun turned to tragedy Saturday afternoon, when 15 hikers were struck by lightning atop Mt. Whitney.

A 27-year-old Orange man identified as Matthew Edward Nordbrock died after lightning struck the metal-roofed stone hut he and 12 others took shelter in. The others suffered moderate to minor burns and other injuries.

Inyo County Sheriff's Lieutenant Jack Goodrich says his office received word of the incident at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, when air traffic controllers from Los Angeles International Airport called to report that a passing aircraft had picked up an "SOS" call.

After the strike, which occurred at about 3:30 p.m., victims Calif Tervo, 44, of San Diego, and Morgan Milligan, 35, of Orinda, went for help.

"At about the halfway point, (Tervo) ran into a Girl Scout leader who had a hand-held aircraft radio with her," Goodrich said. "She issued an emergency broadcast but was unable to pick up any response, so (Milligan) continued to descend the mountain, thinking that no one had heard it."

Not so. A Trans World Airways aircraft crew had picked up the call and relayed it back to LAX. LAX then called the Sheriff's Office, and from there, emergency rescue personnel were dispatched.

Goodrich said Monday that the victims are unable to explain exactly what happened to Nordbrock because the events happened so quickly.

"They did start CPR on him," Goodrich said. "But...they all say the hut became electrified causing arcs to fly around and strike them."

One victim, Edward Wucherer, 32, of Tehachapi, told reporters that Nordbrock had been seated in the center of the hut. He was reportedly thrown several feet by the charge, then lay still on the ground.

Some victims were temporarily paralyzed by the shock. Most suffered what looked like cigarette burns, although one man, 24-year-old James MacLeod of Long Beach, lost consciousness for about 20 minutes after sustaining a circular burn wound about four inches wide.

A smell of burning flesh

"You could smell the burning flesh, burning fur and burning clothes," Tervo told reporters at Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine.

Those injured included: MacLeod, Wucherer, Tervo and Milligan; Glen MacLeod, 37, of Long Beach; James Swift, 24, Kent Kroener, 23, and Stephen Hellman, 23, all of Huntington Beach; Dorith Hertz, 35, and Linda Padgett, 36, both of San Francisco; Yoshiko Otonari, 29, of Tehachapi; and Michael Heil, 37, of California City.

The group was not traveling together. Instead, most were hiking in groups of two or three, but when the storm began all sought out the 12x12-foot hut for shelter. The hut, built in 1909 and located just west of the summit in Sequoia National Park, has been used for a variety of purposes including astronomy.

A second strike

As the victims struggled to cope with the results of the first strike, a second bolt of lightning struck below on the trail, hitting two Southern California men. One, 32-year old Terry Nabours of Laguna Hills, suffered a series of convulsions. Nabours' companion and brother-in-law, Mike Wasson, 32, of Los Angeles, was numb from the charge but managed to resuscitate him.

While the entire harrowing incident lasted almost 17 hours, the actual rescue operations only lasted about five. Nordbrock and four others were flown off the summit Saturday night, and a search and rescue ground team was sent in to stay overnight with the remaining victims. Nordbrock was pronounced dead at Southern Inyo Hospital about an hour after arriving there.

Nabours and Wasson were rescued by a search and rescue ground team shortly before dawn on Sunday. Rescuers resumed their efforts at daylight, with the remaining victims being flown off the mountain by an Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter from the Stockton area.

A team effort

Personnel from the Inyo County, China Lake and June Lake Mountain rescue teams were called in to help, as were helicopter services from the. U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. National Park Service and the Army National Guard.

According to reports in the Los Angeles Times, this was not the first time Nordbrock had been involved in a lightning-related accident.

As a child, he and some friends had been in a rowboat on a lake in Arizona's White Mountains when lightning struck. His mother, Evelyn Nordbrock of Tucson, told reporters he had only been stunned, but that another boy who was wearing metal framed glasses was badly hurt.

According to the other hikers, Nordbrock was wearing metal framed glasses at the time of the accident Saturday.

From Review-Herald newspaper report by Pierre LaBossiere:

Couple caught in snowstorm rescued A mountaineering Southern California couple were in good shape after they became separated during unusual snowy weather in the Ritter Range this weekend.

According to the Mono County Sheriff's Office, Robert Hicks, 65, and Vi Grasso, 59 of Los Angeles were reported overdue at Thousand Island Lake on Sunday. The couple had established a base camp at Thousand Island Lake with friends and were going on day hikes through the wilderness around the Ritter Range.

Russ Veenker of the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team said a member of the couple's party hiked out of the wilderness Sunday to get help for the pair, who were experienced at mountaineering. On Sunday evening, several members of the June Lake Mountain Rescue Team hiked out from Agnew Meadows to the scene. Veenker said it was snowing as rescuers took three hours to reach Thousand Island Lake.

By this time, Grasso and Hicks were more than a day overdue, so a major search effort was initiated. Agencies called out for the search included China Lake Rescue Team, a California Highway Patrol helicopter, the WOOF dog team, Los Angeles Sheriff's Office, Sierra Madre Search and Rescue, a Chinook helicopter from the California Air National Guard, Inyo County Search and Rescue, Ventura County Search and Rescue and San Diego County Search and Rescue. The State Office of Emergency Services coordinated all the agencies involved in the rescue effort.

In all, 65 rescue personnel were deployed.

Finally on early Monday morning, Hicks returned to the base camp, telling rescuers that he and Grasso were on their way to Lake Catherine on the southwest side of Mt. Banner. Veenker said Grasso became tired and told Hicks to go on ahead while she rested. Then snowy weather suddenly arrived and the pair were separated.

After talking to Hicks, who was only suffering some mild, hypothermia, he gave rescuers a description of the area where he last saw Grasso. A CHP helicopter was sent to the scene and located Gross's footprints in the snow. Finally after a couple of hours, she was spotted by the helicopter crew. Grasso was rescued about 30 minutes after all the agencies were deployed in the rescue effort, Veenker said.

Grasso was taken to Centinela Mammoth Hospital for observation. Veenker said she was a little hungry and mildly hypothermic, but otherwise, was in good condition.

Veenker said the rugged alpine terrain of the Thousand Island Lake and Ritter Range area makes these rescues especially difficult.

"You can walk by someone 10 feet away and never see them or hear them," he said.