To PublicSafety@wateroperations.com
We recently had the opportunity to assist the Klamath County Sheriff's Office in searching for three drowning victims who
have been missing for 4 months to more than two years. The Klamath County dive team is one of the best teams we have had the
opportunity to work with. They were very well equipped and were very professional. Using surface supplied air, they made dives
to 165' at an altitude of 4800' and will be recovering the third victim today from 180'.
We would like to thank Dive Rescue International for providing us with a VideoRay ROV to film the last victim who has been missing
for more than two years. It was a tremendous asset to determine the victim's condition before attempting the recovery.
Gene Ralston, owner of Ralston and Associates of Kuna, Idaho, Saturday October 12, 2002, to PublicSafety@wateroperations.com.
Bodies found |
|
10/06/02
By BRIAN COLE |
Drowned men located with sonar
Some high-tech equipment helped
the Klamath County Sheriff's Office bring closure this weekend to
the cases of two men who drowned in Klamath County lakes.
Searchers found the body of
Gerald Peck of Riddle Friday in Odell Lake in about 150 feet of water,
with the help of specialized sonar equipment. Peck's body had been
in the lake since June 27.
Peck and three others, Roman
Peck, 13, of Riddle, and Damond Bland, 31, and Shean Bland, 11, both
of Canyonville, were fishing when their boat began taking water over
the stern. Gerald Peck unsuccessfully attempted to start the boat's
motor, and the boat became vertical and sank.
On Saturday, searchers found
the body of Harley Dain Olson in 165 feet of water in Crescent Lake.
The 20-year-old drowned June 10, 2001.
Olson and two companions were
canoeing on Crescent Lake in northern Klamath County when high winds
and choppy waves caused their canoe to overturn.
Gene Ralston, owner of Ralston
and Associates of Kuna, Idaho, used a boat equipped with a $100,000
sonar device that scanned the bottom of the lakes, finding both the
bodies in the general area divers had already searched, according to
Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.
A team of divers had previously
used infrared cameras to look for Peck. Until Friday, divers were only
able to find the boat. Both Peck's body and the boat were brought
out of the lake Saturday. An autopsy will be performed in Klamath Falls
Monday.
Peck's family was on shore
during Friday's search. "It's a bittersweet day for them, but
it will provide some closure," Evinger said.
Evinger said he had been planning
this search over the last month. Ralston contacted Evinger after he
learned of the missing body, and performed the search for Peck.
"We're treating this as
a death investigation," Evinger said. "His body was found in the
vicinity of the boat.
Peck wasn't a swimmer and
wasn't wearing a life jacket when the boat went under.
Ralston was to search today
for the body of yet another drowning victim, Robert Ray Hunt of Eugene,
whose body has been in Crescent Lake since Sept. 4, 2000.
"Gene and Sandy Ralston have
been a huge help," Evinger said.
The family of Gerald Peck haven't
had a memorial service yet. Now they will. |
Third
drowning victim located by sonar crew |
|
10/07/02
By BRIAN COLE |
Recovery
of body from deep lake will pose challenge
A second Crescent Lake drowning
victim was found Sunday, but recovery of the body will pose great difficulties
for divers.
Gene Ralston, an environmental
consultant from Kuna, Idaho, used high-tech sonar equipment to scan
the bottom of the lake.
Ralston first found the body
of Harley Dain Olson Saturday at a depth of 165 feet. The body was recovered
Sunday.
Also on Sunday Ralston located
the body of Robert Ray Hunt at 180 feet. Divers will try to recover
Hunt's body later this week, according to Klamath County Sheriff Tim
Evinger.
However, recovery of Hunt's
body will be especially challenging for divers, said Ralston, because
of the the extreme depth of the body in the lake, and the 4,800-foot
elevation.
This circumstance "requires
very special techniques to recover the body," Ralston said. However,
divers will know exactly where to find Hunt's remains.
Ralston, an environmental consultant,
says he doesn't make a lot of money searching for drowning victims,
although he is asked to find two to three bodies a month.
He works mostly in environmental
water quality, fisheries and mapping the bottom of water bodies.
Ralston uses a "side scan
sonar" to locate items in bodies of water. This system uses medical
ultrasound technology to greatly increase the resolution of targets,
such as drowning victims.
On Saturday, Ralston located
the body of Gerald Peck, whose remains have been in Odell Lake since
June 27.
Reporter Brian Cole covers
public safety and courts. He can be reached at 885-4416 or (800) 275-0982,
or by e-mail at bcole@heraldandnews.com.
|
Second body recovered from Crescent Lake |
|
10/13/02
By Matt Hall |
Utilizing
a combination of high-tech expertise and dedicated diving professionals,
the Klamath County Sheriff's Office Saturday recovered the remains
of drowning victim Robert Ray Hunt of Eugene, whose body has been in
Crescent Lake since Sept. 4, 2000.
The recovery culminated a concerted
effort in which searchers previously found the bodies of Gerald Peck
of Riddle in Odell Lake in about 150 feet of water, and the body of
Harley Dain Olson in Crescent Lake in about 165 feet of water. Peck's
body had been in the lake since June 27, Olson drowned June 10, 2001.
The recovery of the body, described
by Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger as "somewhat deteriorating,"
was achieved at a depth of "about 180 feet" below the lake's surface.
A sophisticated sonar device and a remote operated vehicle (ROV) were
used.
Gene Ralston, owner of Ralston
and Associates of Kuna, Idaho, used a boat equipped with a $100,000
sonar device that scanned the bottoms of Odell and Crescent lakes. But
Hunt's body was found so deep, according to Evinger, that the ROV
was also called in.
"Gene Ralson ordered the
ROV," said Evinger. "It's a remote controlled unmanned submarine
with cameras in it. It was so deep that we sent the ROV down for a look
at the site on camera to access the bottom condition and the condition
of the remains."
Evinger had praise for all
involved in the recovery effort, including those living in the "Crescent
Lake area who now have some peace of mind," and the Rural Patrol Team.
But it was the dive itself,
and the members of the Sheriff Dive Rescue Team who performed it who
rated Evinger's highest praise.
"It was so deep, and at altitude
also," he said, "the divers took quite a risk to assist the sheriff's
office in the conclusion of this case.
"It required a special mix
of oxygen, nitrogen and helium, a special 'tri-mix' gas, and enabled
us to help bring about closure." |
|
Klamath Sheriff hails high-tech gear that found three drowning victims on lake floor
Idaho man's side-scan sonar-equipped boat has found dozen victims
around West this year
By Barney Lerten, bend.com
(
barney@bend.com
)
Originally Posted October
6, 2002 at 9:32 pm
Last Update October 8, 2002 at 10:00 am
Reference Code: AR-6523
October 8 -
High-tech gear that helped locate three drowning victims at the bottom of Crescent
and Odell Lakes over the weekend is
"an incredible resource," Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger said
Tuesday, vowing to make sure his colleagues around the state are aware
of the tool's availability and usefulness.
"I would say it's an incredible
resource, and for some of these families, it's a godsend to be able
to put a closure to their loved one's drowning," Evinger said after
the side-scan sonar-equipped boat brought in by Gene and Sandy Ralston
of Kuna, Idaho, found the three victims in three days of looking.
"Quite frankly, it's also brought a lot of piece of mind to residents
who use the lake," Evinger said. And the sheriff said while there's
closure for all involved, there's a direct financial benefit as well
to the families of some victims.
When a body isn't recovered, "the death investigation is left open,
and a lot of times, families are not able to get benefits associated
with the person until the death certificate is issued," Evinger said.
Two of the bodies already have been recovered from the murky depths,
and a third such operation is planned later this week, with the aid
of another high-tech device: a remote-operated, camera-equipped underwater
vehicle, being brought in from Colorado to better pinpoint where divers
need to go.
On Friday, working on Odell Lake, Ralston and his sonar-equipped boat,
the Sandy Jean, found the body of Gerald Peck, 38, of Riddle, on the
lake's floor, about 160 feet below the surface. Peck drowned on June
27 of this year, Evinger said, while out on the lake in his 16-foot
fiberglass fishing boat with a modified transom, outriggers and other
fishing gear. "He had the transom into the wind, started taking water
out of the back and the boat sank," the sheriff said.
Moving to Crescent Lake on Saturday, Ralston found the body of Harley
Olsen, 20, of Eugene, one of three people in a canoe that capsized on
the lake in June 2001. Ralston's effort to narrow the search area
was aided by John Kent of Bend, who was fishing on the lake that day
and rescued two teen-agers from the overturned canoe, but was unable
to find Olsen despite hours of looking with his "fish finder" device.
Then, on Sunday, Ralston found the body of Robert Hunt, 19, also of
Eugene, another canoeist who drowned on Crescent Lake in September 2000.
Peck's body was recovered by Klamath County Sheriff's Dive Team
members on Saturday and Olson's body was recovered Sunday, but it
was taking some extra time to work out the logistics for recovery of
Hunt's body from about 180 feet down, Evinger said.
Pressure on divers leaves 'road-map scars' for days
Add in the altitude, and the body is at an equivalent depth of 220 feet,
the sheriff said. "The divers are going to use a special gas mix -
three gases mixed together in their tank," Evinger said. "We're
still assessing it." The remote-operated vehicle (ROV) is likely to
be put in the water Wednesday or Thursday to better define the body's
location, the sheriff said.
"Until last year, we didn't have at the sheriff's office even
a camera to look" for underwater objects, Evinger said. "We used
a lot of resources to find them first. The problem with a diver, at
that depth, is the pressure is so great, the diver receives such a squeeze (they have) 'road-mapping' scars for several days. You need
to be able to put the diver down on the place you know where they are
at. You can't send them down just to look around, only to recover
(the body)."
Evinger said Ralston contacted him by e-mail in early July, offering
his services later in the year. "After we exhausted a couple more
rounds
|
I would say it's
an incredible resource, and for some of these families, it's a godsend
to be able to put a closure to their loved one's drowning. |
Klamath County
Sheriff Tim Evinger |
Captain of Klamath
County Sheriff's Dive Rescue Team of camera searches, we abandoned
that (and) contacted him," scheduling the October visit, the sheriff
said. |
|
"The divers, that's what they do," he said. "They would much
rather be on a rescue mission than a recovery mission, but as a secondary
duty, they do recover (bodies)."
Evinger said of Ralston's services, "Absolutely, it's money well
spent. The unfortunate part is, we've had three ... drownings in similar
locations, a couple in similar circumstances. I don't know if in the
future I'd wait to have three" before calling in such a device for
locating them.
"Certainly, it's a tool we're going to share with other sheriff's
offices across the state, let them know it's available, and what the
capabilities are," the sheriff said. "I believe there are only three
similar devices in the Northwest. Obviously, the operator is the most
key component, and Mr. Ralston sure has a knack for reading the data
off the (computer) screen."
Evinger said a black and white infrared camera would be dropped down
the anchor and marker lines to look for Hunt's remains, but Monday's
try was unsuccessful due to high winds. The sheriff said he's also
"pretty excited about" use of the remote-operated submersible to
help in future efforts, and that Ralston will help train a dive team
member how to operate that device, as he has some knowledge about it.
On Saturday, Olsen's body was found 166 feet below the surface of Crescent
Lake. Kent was pleased to be able to help once again by recounting where
he had been on the lake, thus narrowing the field of search for the
body.
"We're three for three (on the weekend)," Ralston said. "John
(Kent) got us within 150 feet" of where Olson's body was found.
"The other (earlier drowning) was at night, with no witnesses other
than the survivor" - coincidentally, with a last name of Harley.
Kent, a school bus driver, had been fishing for kokanee when he set
off across the choppy, windswept lake that June day last year. After
the 16-foot canoe overturned about 500 yards offshore, near the Crescent
Lake Campground, he was able to get Chris Conklin, 15, and Mariah Schneider,
17, into his boat. But despite spending several hours using his boat's
sonar "fish finder," criss-crossing the water, he wasn't able
to find the missing man in the cold, deep lake, nor could divers or
marine patrols in the days that followed.
(See earlier bend.com story,
http://my.bend.com/news/ar_view.php?ar_id=1865
).
Ralston, an environmental consultant, offers law enforcement and search
and rescue personnel the assistance of his side-scan sonar system
(
http://gralston1.home.mindspring.com/
), for expenses. He explains on his Website
how traditional searches with divers, underwater cameras and even remote-operated
vehicles (ROVs) can be made more difficult, even dangerous, by a lack
of exact location and the water's visibility, current and underwater
obstructions. He helped retrieve a drowning victim for the first time
in early 1999 and has been working across the West since, with more
finds each year.
The sonar system uses the same sort of medical ultrasound technology
that expectant parents are familiar with, in their first view of babies,
still inside the womb. Recent dramatic increases in the technology have
led to much higher resolution, making it possible to use the sonar gear
to find drowning victims, Ralston said.
|
Approaching the midpoint of the search pattern, suddenly Gene cries out:
'We found Harley!' Excitement, jubilation and congratulations are passed all around. |
John Kent |
Bend man who rescued pair, aided in body's retrieval |
|
Ralston's sonar "transducer" is housed in
a towfish, towed through the water, 10 to 20 feet above the bottom.
The reflected acoustic returns are processed into an image, similar
to an aerial photo, that is viewed real-time on a computer monitor on
the boat. Typically, it can search a swath 60 to 120 feet wide, at about
2 miles per hour. A global positioning system (GPS) is used to guide
the boat along a predetermined grid and to mark any found objects.
Idaho man has busy year, helping retrieve drowning victims
Ralston learned of the Crescent Lake drowning
from bend.com and offered
his services, if and when desired.
Ralston said of Kent, "He's a cool guy. That's why we were so happy he could come along."
"Here on Crescent (Lake), it's been gorgeous, awesome," Ralston
said Sunday. "We had some windy days on Odell (Lake)."
This year's 12 retrievals included four homicide victims in California,
located at the request of the FBI at the bottom of New Melones Lake,
northwest of Yosemite National Park, Ralston said. "It was a Russian
Mafia kidnapping scheme," he recalled. "Two (victims) were in 325
feet of water and the other two were at 220 feet."
Also on the boat over the weekend was Sheriff's Capt. Conrad Caillouette,
captain of the Klamath County Sheriff's Dive Rescue Team, who was
quite impressed with the system employed by Ralston.
"This technology that he uses is just fantastic," Caillouette said.
"It's a step in things. He locates it, we use surface-supplied air
to go down and bring these people to the surface. His finding technology
is far superior to whatever's around here, and I like to think our
diving technology is superior. The one he dropped us on this morning
was 4.5 to 5 feet away from the bottom line - that's how close."
The divers now use lights and their own high-tech gear, but at the depths
they work at, it's still a challenge to do the job, he explained.
"There's a big helmet that goes over our head, and an infrared camera
that goes on top of that," linked to the boat above, Caillouette explained,
noting that sometimes, the boat operators see the object on the camera's
image before the divers do.
"It's just incredible," the Dive Rescue captain said, as the device and
what it can find brings closure - not just for friends and family
of the victims, but the searchers as well. "We've spent weeks and
weeks and weeks looking - and now we're getting answers," he said.
"One body took an hour or two, the second even less. It's picked
up the morale of everybody. There's hours and hours of getting out
there and looking and looking - it's tough."
Ralston admitted that while he's typically paid just for expenses,
"It'd be nice to make a little money at it." He said he has two
more bodies to look for in California and Nevada, once the visit to
Oregon is over.
Bend man helps in high-tech recovery effort
Kent, a bend.com member, shared his recollections of Saturday's trip
on the lake with bend.com. Here are some excerpts:
"Using grid coordinates provided by Klamath County SAR, we headed
out to what was supposed to be the drowning location. A bit of confusion
ensured because there are two drowning victims out in the lake."
"After convincing the SAR deputies that ... Harley was closer to the
campground than where we were headed, we searched for the cabin where
the survivors from my rescue were taken to recover, he wrote.
"The lake is down 38 feet from June 2001, and the shoreline without
docks looked different to me, (so) I had a difficult time locating the
cabin," Kent wrote. "(Caillouette) radioed shore to have other SAR
members walk out from the cabin. First it was cabin No. 42, then they
decided it was No. 28, and then they concluded it was #8 after reading
their incident reports. They wanted to bring me ashore and look
for the cabin, but since I had never driven to the cabin from the road,
I told them I didn't have a clue as to which driveway to go down. Finally,
a SAR member walked out from the correct cabin on the shoreline and
we began our search."
"Gene has two computers on board, one a laptop used for sophisticated
mapping and GPS location and one in a topless cooler under his steering
wheel," Kent said. "He also has a separate GPS unit and the biggest
fish finder I have ever seen. Radios, sensors, wires, LCD displays,
winch control, leg strap-on mouse pad, stored keyboard, power converter,
power strips fill his two-person cabin. A generator sits up front
with its cable winch and 'fish';. The winch spool holds 1000 feet of
Kevlar-reinforced cable and Gene's wife states they don't think they
will ever use it all."
"We begin the search by defining the outer limits, the points that
I think are well outside the rescue location. (It) turns out this is
a rectangle 2,000 feet long and 1,000 feet wide. His laptop records
all of this information and sets up a grid search with a series of 21
points on each side of the center staring point. The job of the first
mate is to keep the boat online to the same point on the other side
of the rectangle while Gene fiddles with the 'gain' and elevation controls
of the side-scan (sonar) receiver 'fish'."
"On the first pass down the middle, Gene says this lake is very 'sterile,'
meaning not too many objects on the lake floor. His display looks much
like looking at black and white photos of the moon, except his display
colors are shades of orange and yellow, depending on his 'gain' settings.
Pointing out things like where possibly a boat anchor was drug along
the lake bottom and pockets where items have dropped into the lake,
Gene states that the bottom is quite possibly muddy. Since he is using
sound beams, he can't determine the clarity of the water down there,
but his side-scan (sonar) can see very clearly."
"On the first pass, Gene records a couple of possible hits by hitting
F5 on his laptop. These can then be studied at a later time and precisely
located again if needed," Kent wrote.
'Turing around for the second pass, Gene is using the other channel
of his (sonar) and explains he likes to work uphill, toward the shore.
Gene settles in and takes a big sigh, gets comfortable and says, 'This
can be quite boring.' Approaching the midpoint of the search pattern,
suddenly Gene cries out: 'We found Harley!' Excitement, jubilation
and congratulations are passed all around."
"Not sensing the gravity of the moment, I am a casual bystander who
does my best to share the incredible find," Kent added. "Second
pass and less than 30 minutes into the search, Gene and machine find
a body that has been interned 166 feet down in the lake for (16) months.
A body that was lost in a canoe accident that happened on a day when
the lake should have been left alone to its high, white-capped waves."
Crescent Lake update: Missing drowning victim was Eugene man
Bend fisherman rescued two others who tried to swim to shore from capsized canoe
By Barney Lerten, bend.com
(
barney@bend.com
)
Originally Posted June 11,
2001 at 10:33 am
Last Update June 13, 2001 at 5:29 pm
Reference Code: AR-1865
June 13
-
Klamath County searchers have yet to find a man who apparently drowned after
his canoe overturned on Crescent Lake Sunday, tentatively identified
as a 20-year-old Eugene man.
Sheriff's deputies on Wednesday released the tentative identity as Harley
Olson, the subject of a search since Sunday afternoon's accident. Daily
marine patrols of the lake have not found the missing man, deputies
said.
Bend resident John Kent was fishing for kokanee, not a hero's label,
when he set off across the choppy, windswept lake. But the 47-year-old
school bus driver became a hero nonetheless, when he rescued two Eugene
teen-agers trying in vain to swim hundreds of yards to shore after their
canoe overturned.
It wasn't a completely happy ending to the dramatic rescue, however,
as canoe's third occupant also tried swimming to shore and vanished.
Kent spent several hours using his 12-foot aluminum motorboat's sonar
"fish finder" to try to find him, to no avail.
"That's what is very bittersweet about it," Kent said Monday.
"I searched and searched, running a pattern up and down the lake using
my fish finder."
Klamath County sheriff's deputies got a call that around 1 p.m., the
16-foot canoe overturned about 500 yards offshore, near the Crescent
Lake Campground, dumping the three people aboard into the cold, 200-foot-deep
water, said Maj. Roger Pitts. Kent was able to get Chris Conklin, 15,
and Mariah Schneider, 17, into his boat and back to shore, where they
warmed up from the cold water beside a cabin's fire.
The teens were "dazed and confused," naturally, from their time
in the cold water, Kent said, but "they thanked me for saving their
life."
Sheriff's deputies said the search for the missing man would continue
throughout the week, including two marine patrol boats and three people,
one of them a diver. The sheriff's major said the circumstances and
location of the drowning were very similar to an incident last Labor
Day weekend in which Robert Hunt vanished in the lake.
Fisherman looks back, happens to spot overturned canoe
Kent, a bend.com member who goes by 'Tallfir' or 'jtkemp,' was
accompanied by his black and silver German shepherd, Mikie, on the trip
to Crescent Lake Sunday afternoon, having fished at Odell Lake on Saturday.
It was very windy and the water was real rough, and when he saw the
canoe some distance away, Kent said, "I thought, 'Wow, well, they
must know what they are doing.' I came close enough, I could see two
were paddling at each end and one was riding in the middle."
"I turned around, looked once, they were headed back in," Kent recalled.
"The fish finder had some hits on the surface, so I had just stopped
and changing the rigging. I looked over, it must be another 500, 700
yards, and saw it had overturned. Apparently they were yelling loud
enough, a guy in the cabin on shore heard 'em."
"I figured they're out there, quite a ways from shore, so I should
turn back," he said. "I got there as fast as I could. As I got closer,
I could see they were trying to swim toward shore. I never did see the
third one." Pitts said Conklin was the only one of the three wearing
a life jacket. Kent said Schneider had on "a big heavy sweater. She
was goin' under by the time I got there. He (Conklin) lifted her up
just as I got there."
"When you have an adrenaline (rush) like that - I don't know if
I could get 'em in (the boat) again," Kent said. "He was wearing
those big black military boots, the style that's so popular. I just
said, 'Where's the other person? Where did you see him last?'
He was swimming, they indicated over by the canoe. I circled, I looked,
we were circling. Finally I tied up the canoe, circled a couple more
times and figured I'd better get these guys to shore."
Kent yelled to a man on the dock to call 911, so fire and ambulance
crews arrived quickly, but it took about three hours for sheriff's
rescue and dive boats to show up, Kent said.
"I stayed for three hours and looked and looked," he said. "I
tried to signal. I got one other boat, locals, something to do with
the fire department" to assist. "In that first half-hour is when
ya want to find them, if you can," he said. "I had my fish finder,
I had a couple of hits on big fish that were together, but I'm not
sure how that fish finder reads. I marked the spot where I thought
I saw something on the bottom."
Someone watched over struggling, swimming teens:
'I don't know what made me look back'
Kent was in a search and rescue Explorer Scouts unit in Eugene before
he joined the Oregon Army National Guard for a career of almost 20 years.
He recalls helping find not only bodies but "incredible stories of
finding people," like a lost hunter who rode in on horseback after
a four-day search.
Kent also isn't all that religious, but he know someone was looking
out for the youths he rescued. "I just happened to stop to change
my gear," he said. "I don't know what made me look back. I was
just idling, because it's hard to control (the boat) when you are
tying knots and stuff, so you slow down."
He said the man at the cabin said later he had been a bit reluctant
to head out because he had only a dinghy and, if the swimmers were panicking
and didn't climb in properly, by the stern, they could have swamped
that boat as well.
Kent said he didn't tell the kids on his school bus route Monday morning
what had happened Sunday. "It's got me a little shook," since
one person still apparently drowned, he said. "If I'd have seen
him in the first half-hour, I could have done CPR, tried to revive him."
"I don't know what made me look over there," Kent said. "I thought
I was going to go over there and help 'em in (to the boat), three survivors
treading water. I didn't think it would be a rescue.
"I didn't think I had the right spinner, the right lure on there.
It's the biggest 'fish' I ever caught."
END OF NEWS ARTICLES