MARIN COUNTY, CA — The couple in their seventies who had been missing in the Inverness wilderness for more than a week were found alive and rescued Saturday, the Marin County Sheriff’s office said.
Rescue crews airlifted Carol Kiparsky, 77, and Ian Irwin, 72, and brought them to a local hospital, the sheriff’s office said shortly after noon Saturday. The discovery brought a remarkable end to the rescue effort, which had changed to a cadaver recovery operation last week after rescuers largely gave up hope of finding the couple alive.
“They thought this was the end for them,” sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Brenton Schneider said at a Saturday afternoon press conference. “Carol and Ian’s survival is a miracle. Their family members are ecstatic, to say the least.”
Schneider said the couple were “doing OK,” but suffering from slight hypothermia.
The couple had apparently gotten lost after going for a Valentine’s Day hike, sheriff’s department officials said at a press conference, according to the Mercury News. They were found in a drainage ditch covered by vegetation about half a mile from Pierce Point Road, further than rescuers had thought they could have possibly traveled.
Kiparsky and Irwin had no food or water with them and survived by drinking from a puddle of water nearby, Schneider said.
Two rescuers and a rescue dog came upon the couple Saturday after hearing them screaming for help. While they waited for a helicopter, rescuers gave water and warm clothing to the couple, who were only wearing light clothing.
“Thank God you found us, we’re so happy,” the couple said, according to rescuer Quincy Webster, in attendance at Saturday afternoon’s press conference.
Crews had extracted them by 12:06 p.m., the sheriff’s office said, more than an hour after the initial announcement that they had been found alive.
Carol and Ian are on there way to a local hospital. Both were extracted by @sonomasheriff helicopter and @MarinSAR @marincountyfire pic.twitter.com/3FwNRm6iiu
— Marin County Sheriff (@MarinSheriff) February 22, 2020
“Baffled”
Kiparsky and Irwin, who are from Palo Alto, had been missing since Friday, Feb. 14, when they had apparently left their rental home on Via de la Vista, bringing none of their belongings with them.
Authorities had been “baffled” by the disappearance of Kiparsky, a linguist, and Irwin, a prominent Parkinson’s disease researcher. The couple’s family, too, couldn’t explain what had happened, but felt there was little chance of them being found alive, the Mercury News reported.
The large-scale rescue effort by air, water and land to find the couple started last Saturday, involving more than 100 rescuers from around the Bay Area. Once the rescue changed to a recovery effort used jet skis, National Park Service boats, an airplane and drones to comb Tomales Bay and the shoreline.
After more than a week of searching, no sign of the couple was found until Saturday.
“We believe that our extensive search efforts with every resource that has been available to us would have located Carol and Ian if they were responsive or in an area accessible by foot on land,” the Marin County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.
The couple were supposed to check out from their vacation cottage Saturday morning, Feb. 15, but left all of their belongings — including their phone, wallets and car — at the home, authorities said.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
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