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Dec 20, 2007 11:58 am US/Pacific
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All Three Rescued Children Back In The Hospital
PARADISE (CBS13) ―
All three children who were rescued after three bone-chilling nights stranded in the Northern California mountains are back in the hospital today. They were re-admitted after Alexis Dominguez, 15, was hospitalized for pain in her toes from minor frostbite.
Christopher, 18, Alexis, 15 and Joshua, 12, along with her father, Frederick Dominguez, 38, were snatched from the cold Wednesday afternoon after they were spotted by a helicopter crew.
After Alexis started complaining of pain, doctors decided to also re-admit the two boys for observation.
Brian Clarke, fiance of the children's mother, Lisa Sams, said doctors were running tests on Alexis and expected to release her after keeping her throughout the day.
During the three days the family was trapped in the snow, the girl lost one of her shoes. Her father said he took off his sweatshirt, tore up the fabric and wrapped it around Alexis' feet, hoping to stave off frostbite.
The girl's mother said Alexis' toes had become discolored in recent days but that her father had kept rubbing her feet to try to keep them warm. On Wednesday, Sams said color had begun to return to Alexis' toes while she was recovering in the hospital.
The family's ordeal began Sunday after they went into the forest near the rural foothill town of Paradise, about 100 miles north Sacramento, to cut down a tree for Christmas.
After getting their tree, they became disoriented and began wandering through the woods. The next day, they found a small culvert carrying a creek beneath a dirt road and hunkered down as a storm dropped more than a foot of snow and left drifts up to 7 feet high.
They were spotted late Wednesday afternoon by a California Highway Patrol rescue helicopter that was making its last pass because another storm was beginning to cover the mountain range with yet more snow.
The family was found in a ravine about 1 ½ miles from where they had parked their pickup truck. The nearest ground searchers were about two miles away when they were spotted by the helicopter crew.
The family survived with only minor frostbite, doctors said Wednesday, despite spending three nights in the wet and cold with only jeans, sweatshirts, light jackets and sneakers. Temperatures plunged into the 20s during the days they were missing.
Searching the woods for a Christmas tree is a tradition for Sams and her children, but this was the first year her ex-husband took the children on the annual adventure.
Sams said she was frightened knowing her children and ex-husband were struggling to survive as another storm was blowing in, but she refused to give up hope.
"I couldn't stand the thought of them being cold and not eating," she said after they were rescued Wednesday. "But I had a lot of hope and I just ... I couldn't think negative, I could only think positive."
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