Rescued: Palo Alto couple found alive after vanishing a week ago
After mysteriously vanishing on Valentine’s Day from their rental cottage deep in the Inverness forest, a Palo Alto couple was found alive Saturday morning, the Marin County Sheriff’s department announced on Twitter.
The disappearance of Carol Kiparsky, 77, and Ian Irwin, 72, had baffled searchers, and their disappearance from their Via de la Vista Road cottage near Chicken Ranch Beach had left even their son, Jonas Irwin, without much hope.
“There’s no way they’re going to reappear at this point,” Irwin told this news organization earlier this week. “I mean, you don’t know until you have them physically. But the prospect of us never getting that closure is really going to be bad.”
On Twitter, the sheriff’s department said shortly before 11 a.m. that the missing couple had been found. The office added that they were rescued using the Marin County Search and Rescue, as well as Henry-1, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office’s helicopter unit.
Shortly after noon, the Marin County Sheriff’s office said on Twitter the couple had been rescued and they were being taken to a local hospital. More details on the rescue would be provided later Saturday, the agency said on Twitter.
The couple was last seen on Friday, Feb. 14 during a Valentine’s Day trip around Point Reyes Station. They never checked out of their cottage on Saturday, leaving behind their wallets, phones, vehicle and other personal belongings.
Disappearances are rare in Inverness, a spokesman for the Marin County Sheriff’s Office told this news organization earlier this week, adding that the last time there was a similar search — for two children missing in the woods — was in 1979.
On Thursday, the sheriff’s office had announced that the search was now a “recovery mission,” saying that with the resources deployed in finding Kiparsky and Irwin, they “would have located Carol and Ian if they were responsive or in an area accessible by foot on land.”
The search plan for Saturday included ground searchers, K9 teams, boats, an airplane and drones, the office said in a Thursday news release.
Irwin is a Parkinson’s researcher with 25 years of experience, including work identifying a toxin in heroin that re-created the signs and symptoms of the disease. Kiparsky is a prominent linguist who has published several books, including “Fact” in 1968 and “The Gooficon: A Repair Manual for English” in 1975.
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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
We’ve found Carol and Ian alive. We are working to extract them from the area using @MarinSAR @sonomasheriff Henry 1.
— Marin County Sheriff (@MarinSheriff) February 22, 2020
#BREAKING @MarinSheriff confirms missing hikers from Palo Alto found ALIVE in drainage ditch near Tomales Bay near Shell Beach. Amazing News! pic.twitter.com/QkJcVfQoGD
— Cornell Barnard (@CornellBarnard) February 22, 2020