By Marc Thomas
Olympic Corrections Center Correctional Unit Supervisor
On Friday, Aug. 4, around 2 p.m. the Olympic Corrections Center received a call that a Forks resident, Allison DeMatties, went missing on Thursday evening while picking mushrooms on Mary Clark Road about 15 miles north of Forks. The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office requested our Inmate Recovery Team (IRT) team. Nine IRT members immediately deployed to the area.
They were Tim Hull, Marc Thomas, Tonya Pleines, Matt Davis, Richard Schultz, Brian Bowers, Jerry Banner, Willy Johnson and Jose Sanchez.
We met up with the sheriff’s deputies and two Search and Rescue (SAR) members and conducted gridding operations from Mary Clark Road to the Sol Duc River until approximately 10:15 p.m. Sergeants Tim Hull and Willy Johnson were relieved and sent home as they were being deployed on a DNR project fire at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday. During that time we were conducting gridding operations we did not find any actionable intelligence. Clallam County Sheriff’s Office indicated that they did not believe they would need us on Saturday but would call us if they had any new leads. Their plan was to use a SAR swift water team to search the river banks and also have a plane searching the area. After equipment inventories and securing all equipment all remaining IRT members went off duty at 11:15 p.m.
On Saturday around 11:30 a.m. we received a call from the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office indicating they had potential tracks that appeared to be made with flip flops, believed to be what Allison was wearing, on the Sol Duc River and were requesting our assistance. Five IRT members, Marc Thomas, Brian Bowers, Jerry Banner, Richard Schultz and Tonya Pleines, immediately deployed to the area and met up with two community members, Johnny DeMatties and Brandon Queen, who discovered the tracks on the river bank.
We followed the tracks south away from the river bank to the top of a hill. Once on top of the hill, we came to an almost impassible location. Without another known direction of travel, we spread the team out in a line with a plan to grid out the rest of the area back to Mary Clark Road. The entire area was covered in trees that had been blown down in a windstorm and compounded with new trees growing up through the downed trees.
The gridding operations were extremely difficult and slow. Approximately 150 yards into the gridding operation IRT member Jose Sanchez discovered a yellow bucket.
The bucket was half filled with chanterelle mushrooms, a knife and the same brand of cigarettes Allison was known to use. The bucket was marked, photographed and this information was relayed to the Incident Command Post (ICP). We continued another 50 yards and IRT member Richard Schultz came into a small clearing in the trees. He was standing on a downed tree approximately 6 feet above the ground.
He was waiting for the rest of the team to get on line when he looked down and discovered Allison lying on the ground underneath several trees. This happened at approximately 2 p.m. He immediately notified the team and began to assess her condition. She was extremely weak and barely able to talk. IRT member Brian Bowers is a former EMT and further assessed the patient. She was barefoot, extremely dehydrated and complaining of back, chest and stomach pain.
Due to the terrain, it was determined that she would need to be rescued by helicopter as there was no other safe way to get her out of the woods. The ICP actively began working on getting air support and also started developing contingency plans.
The first contingency plan involved Sequim Fire and Rescue along with Forks Fire attempting to use chainsaws to cut a path to us. After several hours and only making about 50 yards of trail they determined this would not be feasible and canceled their operations.
The second contingency plan was to come across the river and cut a path to our location, but this too was deemed not feasible as there was a 75-foot cliff down to the river. The third contingency plan involved a community member using a river boat to access our location.
At approximately 3:30 p.m. two Forks Ambulance crew members along with a Clallam County deputy arrived at our location. The EMTs were unable to start an IV for fluids due to her extreme dehydration. Her blood sugar was down to 48. Additional information received from the EMTs indicated that she would not have survived another day. The EMTs also relayed information to the ICP that the only feasible way to rescue Allison would be the use of a helicopter.
We eventually got approval for a helicopter out of Everett. (Snohomish County Sheriff) The helicopter arrived on scene at approximately 6:40 p.m. All radio communications with the helicopter were transferred to the IRT Team on the ground and she was successfully extricated from the woods and transported to Port Angeles. The Coast Guard, King County and State Patrol were unable to assist with air assets due to commitments with Sea Fair. At 8:30 p.m. all IRT members were off duty after all items were inventoried and secured.
One of the many reasons for a successful rescue was due to excellent radio communications. Once IRT arrived on seen we were able to effectively communicate with the Clallam County deputies, Search and Rescue as well as the helicopter crew. The 5-ton was utilized by the Clallam County deputies as a command post to include all of the mapping software. The Humvee and two other four-wheel drive vehicles were utilized for transporting the teams to and from all of the search locations.
