It took days before the bodies of the three men were found
An update has come out which is sad since a search had been conducted concerning three missing hikers.
On Wednesday (June 18) three men were hiking when police got calls that these people entered water in the Soda Springs area.
They had dived into Rattlesnake Falls in California and did not re-appear after diving.
According to USA Today, The three hikers consisted of a larger group and the rest of the group had to be rescued through helicopter on June 19 due to remoteness of the terrain they were in.
Placer County Sherriff Office made the following statement on the Wednesday: “Earlier this afternoon, just before 3 o clock, the Placer County Sheriff Office received information that three people had entered the water at Heath Falls in Soda Springs and failed to surface.”
They continued: “Several resources have been utilized with the search, such as the Sheriff Office Dive Team, Search and Rescue, CAL FIRE Technical Rescue, and CHP helicopter.
The area is very deep and isolated and getting to any rescue is particularly hard.
Since then, law enforcers have provided a few updates. They stated on the Thursday (June 19) that their search being undertaken had to be halted because it had turned out to be a bad climate.
Due to unfavorable conditions the search was restarted on Friday (June 20) in a limited but continuing capacity. Police continued: “Aerial survey of the site and the area in general will be conducted over the next few days and where the weather conditions favor.
When conditions become favourable, which is expected by Sunday, there is a coordinated strategy to re-enter the scene back with better equipment and the help of mutual aid cohort to continue the search operations.
The police confirmed later on Sunday (June 22) that they had recovered the bodies of the 3 hikers who had gone missing.
They wrote: “Our heartfelt condolences to their families, friends and those people who got affected by this tragic loss.”
The three victims have been identified as Matthew Schoenecker, of Los Angeles, Matthew Anthony of New York City and Valentino Creus of Los Angeles.
Juan Heredia was among volunteers in the group divers who volunteered to assist in the search of the bodies of the hikers. He posted a video to Facebook in which he showed the readers the harsh situation that he and the rest of the divers had to fight through in an attempt to retrieve the men out of the water.
we are so sad to say that 3 beautiful souls have been retrieved they can now be put to rest in peace and their families have been relieved and can start there healing process,” he added on Sunday.
The water fall was ruthless. It continued pulling me in… and I was not coming out without those 3 souls to their families.”
Heredia continued to say that he and other members of the rescue team took more than three hours to trek to the body of water in question.
Unless they had dived, he maintained, the bodies would not have been returned to view to ‘weeks’.