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Uploaded: Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 9:05 PM
Girl, 5, who went missing on camping trip reunites with search teams that found her
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By Chris Cooney
Bay City News Service
A 5-year-old girl's glowstick necklace helped a helicopter search crew spot her when she was lost in Huddart County Park on Oct. 1.
"It was that necklace, that little bit of light, that they saw through the trees," California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Andrews said.
Andrews made the remarks at the San Carlos Airport, where the young girl, Ava Chotai, was reunited with her rescuers on Tuesday afternoon.
Ava was wearing the necklace when she wandered away from a large overnight camping party in Huddart County Park, which covers around 900 acres of dense forest and steep ravines near Woodside.
Shaum Chotai, Ava's dad who was with her and several other families on the Oct. 1 trip, said she was walking from one part of the camp to another when she became disoriented and walked alone into the forest.
"She just took a wrong turn," Chotai said.
In descending darkness, Ava had wandered about 500 yards away from camp and down a steep gorge, and when she could no longer find her way forward or back, she sat down and waited.
"That is every parent's worst nightmare," Andrews said. Mountain lions, injury, and exposure to cold were some of the dangers facing the little girl, he said.
Chotai said he called 911 within minutes of not being able to find Ava, launching an immediate search and rescue effort by the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, which sent more than 75 volunteers and a K-9 unit in to the mountains.
"They just kept coming and coming," Chotai said.
The CHP sent a helicopter crew, which started circling above the mountains in half-mile loops.
After four nail-biting hours, one of the CHP officers spotted the glow from Ava's necklace.
The officer was wearing night-vision goggles, which amplify light by 6,000 times, Andrews said.
The officer radioed the volunteer crew that they spotted something through the trees in a ravine, and Max, a volunteer rescue dog, picked up Ava's trail.
"As soon as the helicopter left the area, Max indicated she was down there and we heard her say 'I'm over here!'" Max's handler said.
Ava was found safe at about 11:15 p.m.
On Tuesday, wearing a pink dress and the same necklace she had on the woods, Ava and her family were reunited with Max, the CHP helicopter crew and some of the Sheriff's Office volunteers who helped search for her.
Anderson praised the coordinated efforts of all the agencies that responded so efficiently, and said Ava did the right thing by wearing that glowstick necklace and staying in one place.
"That kid is as brave as all get-out," Andrews said. "I'd have been scared to death out there."
Chotai thanked the officers and the volunteers from the sheriff's search and rescue unit.
"I think they have a new volunteer in me," he said.
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Posted by , a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Oct 13, 2011 at 10:23 am This story is almost two weeks old - why is it just today appearing as new? This is an even lower new for the Almanac.
Are the Almanac editors out to lunch or what? At least you could bury the time element so it doesn't say old news in the lede.
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Posted by Renee Batti, news editor of The Almanac, on Oct 13, 2011 at 11:07 am
Renee Batti is a member (registered user) of Almanac Online To the above poster, I'm afraid you didn't read the story, or the headline, closely. This article is about the reunion earlier this week of the child and her rescuers. The Almanac reported on the successful search and rescue effort at the time the events occurred.
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Posted by , a resident of the Atherton: other neighborhood, on Oct 13, 2011 at 12:13 pm Yes, you are correct, but it's still a crummy lede. Mentioning Oct. 1 in the lede tells readers "this is old news."
If the story is about a girl being reunited with searchers then I think it should say so in the lede. You know, something fresh......like "A girl lost in the woods was reunited yesterday. . . "
Just my opinion, but I suspect many readers stopped reading this story when they encountered "Oct. 1" in the first sentence. I know you are a weekly, but you should still try to make the news sound new.
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Posted by A reader, a resident of another community, on Oct 14, 2011 at 10:27 am Umm...I had no trouble understanding exactly what the article was about and I read the whole thing. I thought it was a nice story about a proac tive way to educate the community about rescue services and a smart idea for this individual child to get a chance to thank her rescuers and meet them under less stressful circumstances.... I thought the article was interesting and enjoyable.
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