Sacramento Area Local News

PARADISE (AP) ― A father and his three children who had been missing since heading into the mountains over the weekend to cut a Christmas tree were plucked Wednesday from a snowy ravine, providing a Christmas miracle just as another storm was bearing down.

"I'm just amazed how well they did," said Lisa Sams, after seeing her children and ex-husband for the first time since they went missing. "It was like butterflies in my stomach, like if you were going to go on a very first date."

The four appeared to be in good shape as they bounded from a California Highway Patrol helicopter that made successive flights to bring the family to safety. The father smiled as he stepped out of the chopper to cheers from family and friends, then was whisked to a nearby hospital with his children.

The four left for the tree hunt on Sunday but were not reported missing until late Monday. By then, a fierce storm had dumped more than a foot of snow in the mountains, about 100 miles north of Sacramento, and dropped temperatures into the 20s.

Hope of finding the family alive seemed to dim as the week wore on and forecasts warned of another moisture-laden storm sweeping into Northern California late Wednesday. Wind-driven snowdrifts in the heavily wooded, canyon-crossed foothill region where the family was trapped reached 7 feet high.

"As each hour and day unfolds, you get less and less optimistic," said Mike Lerch, principal of Paradise High School. "This is a big sense of relief to the community."

Frederick Dominguez, 38, and his children -- Christopher, 18, Alexis, 15, and Joshua, 12 -- had been missing some 25 miles northeast of Chico, in the mostly rural north-central region of the state.

The break in the search came mid-afternoon Wednesday when a California Highway Patrol helicopter spotted the father atop a small bridge and landed nearby, sinking into 2 feet of snow.

The family also had used tree branches to write the word "Help" into the snow.

"Our hearts are all full right now," said Cory Stahl, who owns a pest control business where the father works. "It's a very merry Christmas now."

Cloud cover had prevented an aerial search until a brief lifting of the clouds Wednesday afternoon allowed a California Highway Patrol helicopter to join the effort.

Flight officer David White said it was the last opportunity for the helicopter, with snow falling heavily as it descended.

"With another storm coming in, they were just happy to get out of there and get home," he said. "It's probably the best Christmas ever."

He said the family was wet and cold but otherwise seemed fine.

They had survived wearing only jeans, sweat shirts and coats by huddling in a culvert beneath a bridge, sheltered from the outside by a makeshift wall of twigs and tree branches.

The youngest children were pushed deepest into the shelter, with the father and eldest son blocking the wind, Sams recounted after visiting with them at the hospital.

She said they told of huddling together and telling jokes and singing songs to pass the time in the first couple days, before beginning to grow scared and depressed in the last 24 hours.

They'd found water to drink, and did not eat snow because their father remembered reading that it could cause hypothermia.

Frederick also had taken off his sweatshirt, torn up the fabric and wrapped it around his children's feet, hoping to stave off frostbite. Sams said Alexis' toes had grown black, but Frederick had kept rubbing them to try to keep them warm. Sams said color had begun to return to the girl's toes in the hospital.

The family -- which was found less than a mile and a half from the road -- said they had gotten lost by going from pine tree to pine tree, trying to find the perfect Christmas tree, before realizing they were lost.

"My daughter goes, 'Mom, you know how we are. We get excited, and we see a tree and then we see another tree,"' Sams said. "They just got lost, and they ended up taking a side road that led them to the opposite direction."

Sams said they told her they did not try to venture from the shelter because they knew their mother was a "worrywart" and would send a search crew.

"I knew that they would pull together," Sams said. "We're a really close family."

They were taken to Feather River Hospital in Paradise, where they were being checked for dehydration, hypothermia and frostbite.

Treating physician Kurt Bower said all four were doing well -- walking, talking and drinking hot chocolate. He expected them to be released later in the day.

"I'm surprised how good they are," he said. "There's a miracle from God in there somewhere."

When they emerged from the helicopter rides, the family appeared better equipped than rescuers initially thought. Earlier reports said the family went into the woods to cut a Christmas tree wearing T-shirts and light jackets, but all four were wearing heavy winter coats and some had wool caps.

"We're all extremely thankful and feel like we got a Christmas miracle," said Teresa Kennebeck, a secretary at Paradise High School, where Alexis is on the cheerleading squad and soccer team.

Dominguez moved to the rural foothill town of Paradise about a year ago from Los Angeles to be closer to his children, who live with his ex-wife, Lisa Sams.

His co-workers said he is devoted to his children and takes them to church every Sunday, as he did this past weekend before heading out in search of a Christmas tree.

"He lives for his family," said Mairleen Grove, the pest company's office manager. "When he walks in the door, he makes everybody smile."

Authorities believe Dominguez and the children went to church Sunday before leaving for the mountains.

He parked his Chevrolet pickup along a road near the mountain hamlet of Inskip, then likely walked downhill into the woods with his children and became lost.

It was clear at the time and for hours after the family entered the woods. The first storm wave didn't hit until Monday.

Because Dominguez had custody of his children at the time, his ex-wife did not know they were missing until she discovered that her youngest child failed to show up at school Monday. Authorities were alerted at 8 p.m. Monday and immediately began a search.

They quickly found the pickup, but at least 8 inches of snow was covering the ground, hurting efforts to track them.

The search expanded significantly Wednesday morning, as snow had stopped falling for the first time since the family went missing.

It intensified as another Pacific storm was heading toward California, expected to drop up to 2 feet of snow Wednesday night and Thursday morning in the area where the family had been missing.

When the helicopter crew spotted them, the nearest ground search team was two miles away. And snow was starting to fall again.

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