Amateur radio had a crucial role in locating a mother and her 9-year son lost in California’s Stanislaus National Forest. On Friday July 11, 2025, the pair was reported overdue from a day trip to Camp Wolfeboro, a popular scout camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, according to a news release.

On Saturday July 12, the Calaveras County Volunteer Search and Rescue Team (SAR) was conducting its monthly training exercise along the Stanislaus River when members received notification that Tami and son Stirling had been reported missing since Friday afternoon and were not answering their cell phones.

The SAR team set up a command post at Black Springs Off-Highway Vehicle riding (OHV) Recreational Area and quickly began initiating a road-based search using four-wheel-drive vehicles and air support from the California Highway Patrol.

Joining the search was a Deputy and a Forest Service Law Enforcement Ranger who responded to 911 texts from campers in the area that a vehicle possibly matching the description of the pair’s missing car had been found. The SAR team began to find handwritten notes posted near a remote Forest Service road and then another about a mile away that included a telephone number and the names of the missing individuals. Just before 6:00 PM, the car and the lost mother and son were found. But the rescue was not over.

SAR team members were unable to communicate with their command post using conventional frequencies and cell phones from their deep woods location. So they used amateur radio frequency to report their emergency traffic. The call was immediately answered by a retired El Dorado County communications supervisor, who is also an amateur radio operator, monitoring from his home. He contacted the El Dorado 911 center, which provided the information to Calaveras County Dispatch. The SAR command post was notified, and the mother and her son were transported to waiting family members.

Young Stirling also had a hand with the rescue. He used his scout whistle to blow SOS, the internationally recognized Morse code distress signal, to give searchers a better chance of locating their position.