In a story that seems taken out of a Hollywood movie, an American
family stranded at the top of a hidden waterfall in California, with no
way to safely descend, managed to call for help by throwing a message in
a bottle down into the waterfall.
Curtis Whitson, his girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, and their
13-year-old son, Hunter, were nearing the end of a four-day floating and
camping trip when they realized they had become stranded on an isolated
patch of land, atop a waterfall on the Arroyo Seco seasonal river, in
California. Whitson had embarked on the same trip seven years prior, but
recalled a thick rope attached to the slippery wall that had allowed
him to safely rappel down and continue his journey. That rope was gone
now and the rope he had with him was too flimsy to guarantee a safe
descent. They were stuck there, and he needed to come up with a plan to
call in a rescue party.
Whitson and Ramirez had told friends where they were going, so they
expected someone to come looking for them eventually, but who knew how
long it would take for someone to report them missing. They were stuck
on a stretch of land atop a 40-foot raging waterfall with no cellphone
coverage and limited supplies.
After weighing his options, 44-year-old Curtis Whitson decided to
scratch the phrase “WE NEED HELP” into a stick with his pocketknife and
tossed it down into the waterfall. Sadly, the stick kept rotating in the
pool, unable to go through the narrows, so he decided to try again,
this time using a green plastic bottle onto which he scratched “HELP”.
To increase his chances of getting rescued, Whitson also scribbled
“WE ARE STUCK HERE @ THE WATERFALL GET HELP PLEASE.” onto a small bar
order sheet that his bartender girlfriend had brought with her, and
placed it inside the bottle. This time, the bottle went through the
narrow passageway and Curtis knew that he had done all he could. It was
time to wait and pray.
That night, as the family of three slept in their sleeping bags, they
suddenly heard someone shouting into a loudspeaker: “This is search and
rescue — you have been found! Stay put and we’ll be back to get you
tomorrow morning.” They got up, jumped for joy, hugged each other and
cried. They had been rescued, and all thanks to that little bottle they
had sent down.
Whitson later learned that a couple of hikers had spotted the bright
green bottle about a quarter-mile downstream, opened it, read the note,
and immediately called the manager of the Arroyo Seco Campground. An
emergency helicopter flyover was organized, and the stranded family was
swiftly detected using night vision goggles and infrared technology.
“A lot of pieces fell into place just right for these folks,” helicopter pilot Joe Kingman told the Washington Post, adding that in his 23 years of rescuing people, this was the first search mission organized because of a message in a bottle.
