When we stumbled upon the overturned car, we assumed this was what we had been dispatched for. But it turns out that the first crash was several miles away and no one knew about this mother and her children, which explains why the fire department and paramedics were nowhere in sight.

In the meantime, having heard our radio transmission and figuring the weather would force us to turn around quickly, the CHP sent a second patrol car to Casa de Fruita to land the helicopter. When we didn’t show up there, it notified all the dispatch centers that no one had seen or heard from us in more than thirty minutes of bad weather. That’s when CALSTAR set in motion the downed-aircraft policy.

When the dust finally settled, both children pulled through and they installed a radio transmitter above Pacheco Pass, something that should have been done years ago. During my ten years in the air, I never got another 911 page.