Boy’s Death Spurs Survival Seminar So Others May Live

OCEANSIDE —  You’ve just arrived at a state park in the mountains. You decide to hike through the surrounding forest toward one of the loveliest streams you’ve ever seen.

Half an hour later you realize you’ve lost your way. You’re all alone in the wilds, and the sun is starting to set. What should you do?

Find a sheltered area or a large tree, and stay next to it. Don’t wander around looking for a way back to camp. Make a large cross out of brush or rocks in a nearby clearing, so aerial rescuers will have a better chance of finding you. And above all, don’t panic.

That’s what experts advised 1,000 parents and children over the weekend at the fifth annual Wilderness Survival for Kids seminar at El Camino High School in Oceanside. The three-hour seminar, sponsored by the Oceanside Police Officers Assn., was designed to teach people how to survive if they become lost in rugged, remote country.

But the seminar also commemorated Jimmy Beveridge, the 9-year-old Spring Valley boy who became lost in February, 1981, while on a trip to Palomar Mountain State Park with his parents and two brothers. Two hundred volunteers eventually became involved in the effort to find the boy, the largest search ever conducted in the history of San Diego County.

Searchers on the ground sometimes had to crawl on their hands and knees through the thick brush and steep canyons in the area where the boy became lost. Rain and fog hampered efforts to mount a search from the air.

Five days after the search began, Jimmy Beveridge’s body was found in a ravine approximately three miles from where he was last seen. Having apparently become disoriented a few days earlier, the boy had discarded his jacket and shoes, and was wearing only a T-shirt, light pants and socks when he died from exposure.

This year Jimmy’s parents, Jackie and Larry Beveridge, took part in the Wilderness Survival for Kids seminar for the first time. Afterward, Jackie Beveridge said that the seminar “has at times brought back painful memories. Today hasn’t been entirely easy for me.

“But like my husband says, when something like this happens to you, you can either die with it or you can use it to help others.”

The search for Jimmy Beveridge and its tragic end brought forth an outpouring of compassion and grief from people all over the country. Jackie Beveridge recalled that she received stacks of sympathetic letters, many from strangers. Some people even expressed their condolences in poems.

The incident also resulted in the creation of the Wilderness Survival for Kids seminar. Steve Scarano, a sergeant with the Oceanside Police Department, was one of the volunteers who searched for Jimmy Beveridge, and he still remembers the sense of loss he felt when he learned that the boy’s body had been found.

‘Just Unacceptable’

“I have five kids myself, and we go camping a lot,” Scarano said. “Soon after coming off (Palomar) mountain, I started thinking, ‘This is just unacceptable. What can be done to prevent these things from happening?’ ”

Within a few months Scarano arranged for search-and-rescue experts to give a talk on wilderness survival at his sons’ elementary school. Soon after that he organized the first Wilderness Survival for Kids seminar, open to the public.

Attendance at the seminars has climbed steadily from about 200 in 1981, to nearly 1,000 this year. Scarano said one reason for the large response is that people still remember the Beveridge tragedy. “Palomar Mountain is such a familiar landmark--everybody knows it,” he said.

Parents Empathize

“And people care about their own kids. . . . (When they think about Jimmy) I think a lot of people probably say to themselves, ‘But for the grace of God there went my son.’ ”

One of the experts who lectured at the seminar was Willard Tapp, a member of the San Diego Mountain Rescue team and a 15-year veteran of wilderness search-and-rescue efforts. Tapp said, “There are four basic steps that lost kids or grown-ups should remember.

“Stay put, and conserve energy. Don’t get up and move around--all that does is get rid of body heat. Third, find shelter.”

A natural cave or rock shelter is best, but Tapp recommended taking along a heavy-duty plastic trash bag for an emergency shelter, too.

Sun or Rain Shelter

The trash bag will provide shelter from the sun or rain, and will allow you to stay out in the open where you’re easier to see from the air, he pointed out.

“The trash bag is also a confidence builder,” said Tapp. “And that’s one thing you desperately need out there--confidence. A positive attitude is 60% of the battle.”

The fourth step is to “make yourself big”--make yourself easier to see from the air--by arranging rocks or brush in a large cross or other pattern in a clearing. You should also lie down in a clearing when a search plane approaches, Tapp said, because from the air it is much easier to see a person who is lying down than it is to see someone who is standing.

Tapp also noted that if you are lost in winter or at high altitudes, “You should never eat snow to quench your thirst. It takes your body so much energy to melt the snow that you actually lose moisture doing it.” Eating snow also lowers the body’s core temperature, and if your core temperature falls even a few degrees, you can become sluggish and disoriented. A drop of a few more degrees is life-threatening.

“If you’re lost in the desert, don’t conserve water,” he added. “You’ll lose moisture faster that way. If you’re thirsty and you have water, drink it.”

‘Hug a Tree’

Those who participated in the seminar were also urged to “hug a tree” if they get lost, a phrase that refers to picking a specific tree and staying by it while rescuers search for you. “Hugging a tree” is an idea that Ab Taylor, a retired tracker for the U.S. Border Patrol, developed in the wake of the search for Jimmy Beveridge.

The idea has expanded into a nationwide program to teach children how to survive if they become lost, said Jackie Beveridge, who is the Hug a Tree program’s executive director. Experts visit schools and, with the aid of a slide show, explain “how not to get lost, and how to keep yourself safe if you do get lost,” she said.

“Hopefully, by inundating kids with this information, it will stick with them.”

The idea apparently works. By the time the seminar at El Camino High School ended, many of the children in attendance were repeating phrases such as “Make yourself big” and “Hug a tree” as they headed for the gymnasium’s exits.

Outside, it was raining hard--exactly the way it was on a February day four years ago when Jimmy Beveridge got lost.