Oroville Mercury-Register report:
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Two days after her son and niece were rescued by helicopter, unhurt, from Butte Creek Canyon, Cherokee resident Beverly Boss said she still shook when she thought about what could have happened to them.
Boss' son, Austin Rogers, and his cousin Kovina Dennis, both 11, left the area near Pines Elementary School in Magalia about 4 p.m. Wednesday to explore hiking trails.
When the children didn't return to the Magalia home of Boss' sister, Cindy Woolridge, by 6 p.m., Boss called the Butte County Sheriff's Office.
Search and rescue volunteers began combing Butte Creek Canyon, between Magalia and Butte Creek. Meanwhile, Boss called her ex-husband, Michael Rogers, and the two took an ATV into the canyon to join the search.
Shortly after 11 p.m., a television news broadcast alerted Oroville resident Dan Kohrdt to the search for the children. He called pilot David Gunsauls in Red Bluff and had him fly Kohrdt's Bell 407 helicopter to Chico, where the two men met and took off for Magalia.
Gunsauls said it was clear that officials with the Butte County Sheriff's Office didn't want the helicopter to join the search and allegedly refused to give him the GPS coordinates for the search area.
Bad weather, and the lack of a pilot trained for night flying, had grounded the sheriff's helicopter, and a unit from the CHP.
Undaunted, Kohrdt and Gunsauls continued to search for the children, using a state-of-the-art night vision system, and tracing natural contours on the ground they thought the children might have followed.
They located them about 2:30 a.m. huddled together in a clearing on the north side of Butte Creek -- at least a half mile from where ground searchers were looking, south of the creek.
Gunsauls pulled off a tricky hovering maneuver to get the helicopter close enough for Kohrdt to pull the children into the craft. They were reunited minutes later with their families at Pines Elementary.
Boss said she is grateful beyond words that Kohrdt and Gunsauls intervened in the search.
"Between the weather turning bad and mountain lions, there's no telling what might have happened to them if the pilot hadn't found them," she said. At the time, she remembered being most concerned about the weather, which was turning colder. She said neither child was wearing a heavy coat.
Search and Rescue incident commander Mike Larish said it's likely the children would have spent at least several more hours lost in the canyon if the helicopter hadn't located them. Larish said the children were walking toward some lights, which would have taken them deeper into the canyon.
Boss said after their rescue, the children told her they would never explore that far from home again, and next time, Austin said he would take a compass along.
Boss said the children may have walked up to three miles from the school. She said Kovina fell asleep a couple of times during the night, and that both children lost track of how long they'd been missing. "When they were found, they thought it was about 10 p.m.," she said. Boss said the children had a plan for getting themselves out of trouble, but couldn't really do anything until daylight. She said they planned to walk back to Butte Creek, then follow it until they came to a house, or other place where they could call for help.
The two children reportedly clung close to each other so they wouldn't get separated in the dark. "It was pitch black in that canyon," Boss said. "The children said all they could see were Austin's tan pants and Kovina's white shoes.
At one time, the children told her, they tried to take shelter in a burrow, but it offered no protection from a light rain that started to fall.
The children related that they heard the helicopter fly close to them three times before it landed, but they thought they were hearing airplanes.
Boss said both Austin and Kovina are extremely bright and mature. Austin suffers from Asperger Syndrome -- a condition similar to autism -- which allows him to become very focused on a task and may have helped him in this circumstance, said Boss.
"I'm not sure what motivated these men to do what they did, but we can't thank them enough for it," Boss said.
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