Vongphachan

(Updated at 8:30 a.m. Friday to correct Deng Vongphachan's name.)

Multiple agencies are searching a snow-covered area of Low Divide Road for a 71-year-old Smith River woman who was reported missing Thursday.

Deng Vongphachan had been searching for mushrooms, but was reported missing by her son at about 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. Thursday, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott said.

It was almost dark when Del Norte County Search & Rescue volunteers found the woman’s truck near the intersection of Low Divide Road and Forest Service Road 17N21 about six miles from North Bank Road near Signal Peak, Scott said.

“We did an evening search into the darkness and couldn’t find anything,” the sheriff told the Wild Rivers Outpost on Sunday. “Then we went back the following day with Del Norte Search & Rescue and some volunteer neighborhood people and some family and still no luck. And then yesterday we did another push and we ended up finding her backpack, but not her.”

Scott said the woman’s backpack was found in the area where she had been cutting mushrooms. The Sheriff’s Office also obtained a warrant to see if Vongphachan had used her cell phone and found that she had turned it off, Scott told the Outpost.

Agencies from Triniity, Humboldt, Josephine, Douglas and other nearby counties are joining in the search, Scott said. The U.S. Coast Guard and California Highway Patrol have provided helicopters as has Dan Brattain, CEO of Cal-Ore Life Flight. Scott said roughly 40 searchers and two rescue dogs are combing the area for Vongphachan.

“We’ll continue the search into the evening,” Scott said Sunday, estimating that about 2 inches of snow had fallen in the area. “We’re not going to give up, that’s for sure.”

SHARE →