Heard Shots, Then Felt Pain : Man Is Wounded in Canyon Mystery

A 41-year-old Anaheim man was standing by his car on Silverado Canyon Road in the Cleveland National Forest Monday morning when he heard the sound of a gun shot, and then another one, he told fire volunteers and Sheriff’s Department investigators.

But it wasn’t until a few moments later that Richard Ernest Stapp noticed a sharp pain in the back of his head, as though he had been hit with a brick, Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Rivas said. And when Stapp touched his head, there was blood on his hand, Rivas said.

He tried to make his way down the little-traveled canyon road, but two passers-by who noticed him driving erratically stopped him and took him to a nearby fire station.

U.S Forest Service Capt. Robert Debaurn said he was called to the station Monday after “a guy comes into the fire station and says, ‘I have a headache.’ ”

‘Fully Conscious’

“He was bleeding, but not profusely . . . there was a hole in his head,” said Orange County Fire Department Capt. Patrick Antrim, whose station on Silverado Canyon Road was where Stapp was first taken. “He was fully conscious and fully oriented the whole time.”

A few hours later, X-rays taken at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where he was flown by helicopter, showed no sign of a bullet or of bullet fragments in Stapp’s head. Rivas said that the Sheriff’s Department is looking into the matter but that investigators have not determined what may have caused the wound near Stapp’s right ear.

“We’re listing him as a possible gunshot victim,” Rivas said, adding that it is not unlikely that someone could be shot and not realize it initially.

“When something happens, and the adrenaline is still going through you, it’s very, very possible that you don’t notice you have been shot,” he said. “You’re worked up, you’re not even thinking about this. There are a lot of situations that do occur like this.”

Stapp, who was listed in stable condition Monday evening, told investigators that he was sightseeing in a remote canyon area above the Silverado Canyon community when he heard the shots.

Investigators believe that the incident occurred about six miles past the gate marking the end of the paved section of Silverado Canyon Road

The people who stopped to help Stapp were in a truck traveling in the opposite direction on the narrow road, Rivas said. They put Stapp in the truck bed and drove to the fire station, with one of the men following behind in Stapp’s car.

Paramedics Called

Rivas said volunteer firefighters called the U.S. Forest Service because the area is part of the Cleveland National Forest, and paramedics from Villa Park were also summoned to examine Stapp before he was airlifted to the Santa Ana hospital.

Antrim said that no hunting is allowed this time of year in the national forest and that target shooting once allowed in “designated shooting areas” is now illegal. But two hours after Stapp was airlifted, four young men were seen shooting rifles about 1 1/2 miles beyond the gated entrance to the dirt road.

Rivas said investigators want to return to the area with Stapp so that he can show them exactly where he was when he heard the gunshots.