FORKS — Emergency personnel had to use chain saws to rescue a vacationing Texas couple and their 4-year-old daughter Sunday afternoon, clearing a path through downed trees after the family became lost while hiking near the visitors center.
James Eaden, 25, Kite Lesley, 23, and their daughter, whose name was not available, were not injured, Brian King, Clallam County chief criminal deputy, said Monday.
They became lost shortly after beginning their hike at 10:30 a.m. on a nature trail at the Olympic Natural Resources Center on South Forks Avenue and were returned to their vehicle by 4:30 p.m.
The family likely took one of the many game trails instead of staying on the main path and walked for a few hours before calling 9-1-1.
“They got disoriented,” King said.
Sheriff’s Deputies Gene Hoagland and Joe Pursley employed enhanced 9-1-1 mapping from inside a Sheriff’s Department vehicle to plot the location of the couple’s cellphone, King said.
They confirmed the family’s location by using their siren to get a response.
The deputies then scrambled through steep terrain with trees strewn about from pre-commercial thinning.
“Logs were laying basically everywhere,” King said.
But by the time they reached the family, Lesley was complaining of a sore back, and the girl had lost her shoes.
“They were pretty exhausted at that point, as well as the deputies,” King said.
Hoagland and Pursley took the family to higher ground until emergency personnel from the Forks Fire Department and Forks Community Hospital’s Forks Ambulance Service reached them.
The Forks emergency personnel “blazed a trail with chain saws to get the couple out of there,” King said.
Pursley carried the girl to the couple’s vehicle about a mile from where they had stayed put after calling 9-1-1, King said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
