El Toro Marines Join Mt. San Gorgonio Scout Search

Nearly 100 Marines from El Toro and Twentynine Palms joined the search Thursday for missing Boy Scout Jared Michael Negrete, 12.

Three helicopters and the Marines joined hundreds of others on the 14th day of searching for the boy, who disappeared in rugged terrain while on his first hike.

Search and rescue crews and trackers combed a 22-square-mile area of Mt. San Gorgonio, concentrating on the White Water area and South Fork, where the boy’s camera was found Saturday, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Debbie Durrough said.

Trackers found a 2-quart canteen Wednesday afternoon that they thought belonged to Jared, who disappeared while on a hike near the 11,500-foot summit of the mountain. But the canteen turned out not to be his.

“We can only cover about 1 mile a day because the terrain is so rugged,” Durrough said.

Searchers covered more than half of the 22-square-mile area, she said, and about 50 of them planned to continue the search through the night.

Although rescue teams found no new evidence or leads Thursday, crews remained optimistic that they would find the El Monte Scout, who vanished July 19.

“When the probability of his survival rate is way below zero and we start risking injury to our searchers through fatigue, then we will think about suspending the search,” said Durrough, who added that it would “definitely” continue today.

“We take it on a day-by-day basis,” she said.

After two weeks of tramping through the rugged country, the risk of injury to the searchers is high, Deputy Bill Lenew said.

“The risk of injury is high because of exhaustion, and we have to careful not to deplete our resources,” he said.