Salvation Army Camp Employee Injured in Search for Missing Hiker

One person suffered an ankle injury Sunday during the rescue of a missing hiker above the Salvation Army Camp near Malibu.

The report of a missing hiker came in at 11:19 a.m. Sunday above the Salvation Army Camp in the rear of Tapia State Park just off of Malibu Canyon, according to Capt. David Katz of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Malibu Search and Rescue Team.

The hiker, who left at 5 a.m. with a group, was a guest at the Salvation Army Camp and had taken an incorrect path down and gotten lost. The group had returned down the mountain and did not notice that they had left someone behind.

Using GPS coordinates from the victim's cell phone, Katz said rescuers pinpointed the hiker's location to steep drainage just below Brent's Mountain, which is known for its 1,200 foot steep elevation gain in a mere half mile climb.

Two Salvation Army Camp employees had already began the climb up to help the hiker and were in radio contact with Malibu SAR team members. 

The victim had been with a hiking group who left the camp at 5 a.m. to scale the peak. 

Malibu SAR deputies hiked up the steep cliff face while a sheriff’s Air 7 helicopter arrived and found the missing victim in a drainage approximately 400 feet below the cliff peak, Katz said.  

Malibu SAR deputies helped one of the searchers who had suffered an ankle injury and could not climb down the steep cliff, according to the captain.  

A Los Angeles County Fire helicopter 19 hoisted the injured rescuer and one Malibu SAR deputy that had reached that victim, Katz said. 

The copter then hosted the uninjured hiker and the other rescuer from the steep terrain and brought them to safety at Malibu Creek State Park. 

Two additional Malibu SAR deputies were picked up by Copter 19 by a “one wheel” extraction from just below the peak. Katz explained: "A 'one wheel' maneuver is a difficult precision extraction technique whereby the Copter 19 pilot moves the helicopter so that one of the copter’s main landing gear wheels touches the side of the cliff thereby allowing rescuers to climb from the cliffside directly into the helicopter while the helicopter is still in flight."