I LOVE Happy Endings! God Gets The Glory!

Snowbound family's 'Help' Sign leads to rescue!

source

(CNN) -- Stranded in the snowy California woods for three days after losing their way while searching for a Christmas tree, a father and his three children fashioned a "Help" sign out of twigs on a nearby unpaved road, according to the helicopter pilots who found them.

Lexi and Joshua Dominguez exit a helicopter Wednesday, shortly after being found. (story continued below)

(pic abovel)Lexi and Joshua Dominguez exit a helicopter Wednesday, shortly after being found.

The four sought shelter from the snow in a culvert and removed their sodden socks in an effort to stay warm and dry while they waited for rescue, the pilots said.

Frederick Dominguez said that during the three-day ordeal, he and his children slept inside a log for warmth and ripped apart their shirts to wrap their wet, freezing feet.

"You just go to survival mode," he said. "Every parent would do that. You would do anything, sacrifice yourself, because these are your kids."

Dominguez and his children -- Christopher, 18; Lexi, 14; and Joshua, 12 -- were reported missing Monday night by Dominguez's former wife and the children's mother, Lisa Sams, according to police in Paradise, California, a town of 27,000 people about 90 miles north of Sacramento. Video Watch the family talk about their "scary" ordeal »

"I'm glad I'm home. Praise God," Dominguez told reporters after exiting a chopper at the command post. "It was awful."

Asked how he survived, he replied, "Jesus Christ."


Dominguez said he used branches and sticks to spell out the word "help" near the culvert, where the three slept the last two nights -- at times sleeping with their feet inside each other's shirts to help stave off frostbite.

He said his daughter was the first to hear a California Highway Patrol helicopter overhead. He said he ran though several feet of snow barefooted to wave it down.

"When they turned around, man, I was just praising God and saying, 'Thank you Lord, thank you Lord,' because I knew we had made it," he said.

Police vehicles equipped with snow chains rumbled up mountain roads to help conduct the search, which also involved a snowmobile and dogs. More than 80 searchers scoured the woods Wednesday until the four were found about 1 p.m. (4 p.m. ET).

Officer Steve Ward said he was piloting the helicopter out ahead of bad weather when he spotted Dominguez coming out of the culvert and waving. "We were very lucky that we just saw this guy at the last second."

Paramedic Flight Officer Dave White, who was with Ward, said that after the two shut down the helicopter and waved the family over, all four came running. "The little girl was in tears," he said.

White said the family was found north of where ground crews were searching. The pilots could see a "Help" sign they had made with twigs on a nearby four-wheel-drive road, he said.

Christopher Dominguez told CNN's Anderson Cooper the family got lost Sunday searching for a tree, which they had chopped down but later abandoned. He said they didn't have food, heavy coats or other provisions to help prepare for the cold nights.

"We weren't prepared at all," he said. "We just thought we were going to go up to the mountains, get our tree and go back home. It didn't turn out that way."

All four appeared to be in good condition as they were brought by chopper to the command post and taken to ambulances.

Wendy Wilson, the children's aunt, told CNN's Rick Sanchez the two younger children had some frostbite on their toes and a touch of hypothermia, but were expected to make a full recovery.

Butte County Search and Rescue dispatcher Madde Watts said, "they had angels with them, for sure."

The search riveted those in Paradise and beyond.

Mayor Alan White, whose son played soccer on the same team as Joshua last year, said he and many others in and around Paradise have cut Christmas trees in the same place where the family vanished. When winter weather sours there, he said, people in the woods can get lost quickly.

"If you're 50 feet from your car, you might not be able to find it," he said.

Although police found the family's car, it offered no clues as to where they might have gone.

The inaccessible area is beyond the reach of cell phones, authorities have said.
advertisement

Paradise High principal Mike Lerch said students had volunteered to help in the search. "This is a good family," he said.

Christopher Dominguez had graduated from the school a few months ago, Lerch said, and Lexi is a sophomore there. Joshua attends Paradise Intermediate School.

File This Under: You Go Girl! You Are An Inspiration!!

Woman survives 19 hours in sea off Maui
source

UKUMEHAME, Hawaii - A 49-year-old woman held onto a water container to stay afloat for 19 hours until she was rescued from choppy ocean waters a mile off Maui, she said.

Lillian Ruth Simpson, of Juneau, Alaska, told the Maui News that she also wrapped her bathing suit top around her head to keep warm after sunset.

A fishing charter boat spotted her in the water Friday morning, dehydrated and sunburned. She was treated at a hospital and released.

"The times I thought, 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die,' I would say, 'No, I have three kids and you're not taking me anywhere," she said.

A buoy near where Simpson was floating registered an average water temperature of about 80 degrees this week, said National Weather Service forecaster Robert Ballard.

Simpson, who worked as a drug and alcohol counselor in Alaska, had been canoeing alone and paddled out to some tour boats Thursday morning to distribute invitations to a fundraiser for a documentary on youths and drugs. She was already tired from the effort when strong winds flipped her canoe, she said.

She called to a nearby charter boat for help, but she apparently was unable to attract anyone's attention and it left. She tried for hours to right the canoe before giving up, she said.

"Every time I turned it, the boat would partially submerge," she said.

Then she decided to swim for shore.

"I just kept trying to swim toward Olowalu, but really the water did not want to take me there," she said.

Simpson spent a long night dozing off, accidentally swallowing sea water, throwing up and trying to keep warm.

Joseph Carvalho Jr., captain of the boat Strike Zone, spotted what he first thought was a large balloon in the ocean early Friday morning. He went to investigate because floating objects usually attract mahimahi and other game fish.

It wasn't until the boat got close that the crew realized it was Simpson. After they carried her aboard, she was hungry, thirsty and couldn't remember her name.

"She told me that she kept telling herself, 'At least the water's warm,'" Carvalho said. "Your survival instinct kicks in. She made something out of nothing and that saved her life."

Simpson said that she is not a strong ocean swimmer, but that she has been around boats all her life because her father and sister fished.

"I won't say I'm not going back in the ocean," she said. "But I'm not going back alone anytime soon."

****

That's a brave woman!!

Thank God for her survival kicking in, and heeding it

instead of giving up!

Shoot, after watching the movie "Open Water"

you won't catch me in water by MYSELF!

No-sir-ree-bob!

Ivent

A Very Happy Ending!

Autistic hiker found alive in W.Va.

source

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - An autistic 18-year-old lost in the wilderness for four days was found alive Thursday, weak but apparently fine, and reunited with his family, searchers said.

"To the best of our knowledge, he was just hungry and thirsty and fatigued," Jim Reneau, one of the nine searchers who found Jacob Allen, said at a news conference at the command post near Davis, about 90 miles south of Pittsburgh.

Allen, who wandered away from his parents while hiking Sunday, was found lying in a clearing about a mile from where his hat was found Monday.
Allen, who has the mental capacity of a 3- or 4-year-old, opened his eyes and rolled over to
meet his rescuers when Reneau's son, Jeremy Reneau, called out his name.

"He was very quiet, he was nonverbal," said Jeremy Reneau, 25, the first to spot Allen. "But you could tell by his body language he was hungry."

Rescuers fed him candy bars and peanut butter sandwiches and tried to walk him out of the wooded Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, part of the Monongahela National Forest. When he became too tired, they carried him out on a litter, Reneau said.

"The family is all together," search group spokesman Chris Stadelman said. "As soon as they heard the report he was alive and doing fairly well, they gathered in a prayer circle." (emphasis by Ivent)
The Inter-Mountain newspaper reported that Allen was taken to Davis Memorial Hospital, but a spokeswoman for the hospital declined to comment.

"I think the whole state's relieved," said Lara Ramsburg, spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin, who visited the Allen family Wednesday night. "We're all relieved for him and his family."

Allen wandered away from his parents Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of volunteers and trained professionals had been combing the woods, calling for him to come to them for candy bars, ice cream and other food.

Allen had no food or water with him, but Stadelman had said there were natural water sources in the search area, which consists of about 10 square miles of often steep and brush-covered terrain.

Overnight temperatures dropped to as low as 38 degrees on the nights Allen was missing. He was wearing hiking boots, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a wind jacket and wind pants.
(This version corrects the spelling of the rescuers' name to Reneau instead of Renau.)

****

I'm so happy this young man was found. Most stories have the opposite ending.

God is good!

Ivent

File this under: Isaiah-what part of Sexual Harrassment is illegal and costly, did you not understand?!

ISIAH THOMAS LOSES SEXUAL HARRASSMENT CASE: Former NY Knicks executive awarded $11.6 million!
(October 2, 2007) pics, story, courtesy of eurweb.com

Another fine mess for Isiah Thomas. This time a jury has found that the coach of the New York Knicks, sexually harassed a former team executive and that Madison Square Garden, the owner of the team, improperly fired her for complaining about the unwanted advances.

The jury also ruled that the former executive, Anucha Browne Sanders, is entitled to $11.6 million in punitive damages from the Garden and James L. Dolan, the chairman of Cablevision, the parent company of the Garden and the Knicks.

Of that figure, $6 million was awarded because of the hostile work environment Mr. Thomas was found to have created, and $5.6 million because Ms. Browne Sanders was fired for complaining about it. Mr. Dolan’s share is $3 million; the Garden is liable for the rest.

The judge will decide later on compensatory damages, covering actual economic harm suffered by Ms. Browne Sanders, like back pay and benefits, reports the NY Times.

*************************

A mighty blow has been struck in the courtroom against sexual harrassment!! NO WOMAN (or man) should have to work in a hostile environment. *note to people in authority* you better look up employment law. Sexual harrassment pays off for the victim!!! People are very sympathetic towards sexual harrassment cases and being high profile, simply means you're going to pay out the WAZOOO!

Based on Anucha's pic (above) you'd have to be a stone cold fool plus 3 kinds of crazy, to believe she would put up with such foolishness. Shoot she turned my blood into ice, ok?? You can tell this woman does not play! Silly, silly guys! tsk, tsk.

Of course an appeal is on the horizon...i'm almost sure of it.

You betta recognize people in authority-employees are documenting and recording your actions, & words. You be better keep it right, and keep it tight. Consider yourself warned.

Other wise the saying, "it costs to be the boss" will be taken to 12 different levels.

Ivent