Just after 4:30pm, late Tuesday afternoon, November 29th, the Curry County Sheriff’s Office 911/Dispatch received a call from Jim Cole of Gold Beach, reporting that while he was traveling on a back road about thirty miles from Gold Beach, he discovered a woman who was about out of gas and had been lost up there for a few days.
The woman, had no idea where she was and did not want to leave her car. Cole then drove down to where he could get cell service and called the Sheriff’s Office.
Curry County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue was immediately advised by Curry County Sheriff’s Office 911/Dispatch and and given the general location of where the woman, identified as 72 year old Josephine Golden out of Grants Pass, may have been located according to Cole.
The area, about thirty miles east of Gold Beach, is where there are many spur roads that are not traveled very often above the Lobster Creek area. Search and Rescue members, responded to the area and located Golden. gave Golden some gas before escorting her back and out of the area.
While Search and Rescue members were conducting the rescue up Lobster Creek, the Curry County Sheriff’s Office 911/Dispatch received a 911 call from Brookings resident, twenty-year-old Valerie Tribble, reporting that she and two of her female friends had hiked to Vulcan Lake about thirty miles east of Brookings and that it was getting dark, they had no flashlights and they could not find the trail they went in on.
Sheriff’s Dispatch kept the girls calm, pinpointed where they were and advised Sheriff’s Search and Rescue of the issue. Search and Rescue members responded and while they were on their way, the girls were found by a family member, off duty Brookings Police Officer Bryan Holmes, who the girls had contacted prior to calling 911.
