By Khalida Sarwari
A Felton man and his young son who were keeping an eye out for a missing woman as they hiked in the Santa Cruz Mountains over the weekend ended up finding her and likely saved her life.
Joachim Deguara, a 31-year-old software engineer, said that after he finished his breakfast cereal Saturday morning, he went online to read reports about 58-year-old Debra Collins, a fellow Felton resident who his neighbor had told him was missing.
That afternoon, Deguara asked his 7-year-old son Dylan to go for a “dual purpose hike” with him at Fall Creek, located in the northern part of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park about a mile away from his house. The idea was to keep an eye out for Collins while getting some fresh air, he said.
Deguara said that while he usually walks on the lower part of the Fall Creek trail, he decided to hike a different route to look for Collins.
At about 1 p.m., roughly 45 minutes into hike, Deguara said he came across an unmarked side path in a remote area and decided to follow it.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we go explore this area a bit?'” Deguara said. “I felt like being adventurous.”
About 10 minutes later, Deguara said he saw something blue about 100 to 150 feet in the distance. He told Dylan to stay back and went to see what it was.
As he got closer, he saw it was a woman lying on her side about 25 feet off the trail.
Deguara said he called to the woman and asked if she was OK.
“She looked like someone sleeping in the woods, as odd as that sounds,” he said.
He said she stirred and appeared slightly disoriented but in “amazingly good” condition.
“I was really shocked at how good of a condition she was in, other than having low energy,” he said.
Deguara and his son stayed with Collins until paramedics arrived. While they waited, Collins told him she had gone out for a hike on Nov. 28, explained the route she had taken and said that somehow on her way back, she had lost her way and seemed uncertain about how exactly she had ended up on the trail.
Deguara said Collins told him she had been craving lemonade in the six days that she was without food, and that she had kept a small plastic produce bag to collect water in.
“I was happy she was found and she was going to go back home,” he said.
Deguara attributed finding Collins to simple luck. He said that although he had set out to find her, he knew his chances were slim.
“It’s like winning the lottery,” he said.
He said it turns out that Collins lives just a block away from him.