SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — David Lavau’s children drove slowly along the perilously curved mountain road, stopping to peer over the treacherous drop-offs and call out for their father, missing for six days.
Then, finally, a faint cry: “Help, help.”
The voice from the wilderness not only let Lavau’s children find him, it may have brought closure to another family and another missing persons case.
Close to a week after his car plunged 200 feet into a ravine, Lavau, 68, was rescued Thursday by his three adult children, who took matters into their own hands and searched a highway between their father’s home in northern Los Angeles County and Ventura County, where a detective told them Lavau’s bank and cellphone calls had placed him, sheriff’s spokesman Capt. Mike Parker said.
And near him, they found a body in another car that belonged to an 88-year-old man reported missing 10 days earlier.
As Lavau lay injured in the woods next to his wrecked car in the rugged section of the Angeles National Forest, he survived by eating bugs and leaves and drinking creek water, a doctor said.
His family told the Los Angeles Times that Lavau expected to die, and scrawled a farewell note on his dusty trunk: “I love my kids. Dead man was not my fault. Love, Dad.”
Lavau was in serious but stable condition Friday at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital with three rib fractures, a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm and fractures in his back, said emergency room physician Dr. Garrett Sutter. He was expected to be released in three to four days after surgery on his shoulder and to make a full recovery.
One of the first things he requested after his rescue: a chocolate malt, Sutter said. He said Lavau also was “very desirous of a lobster taco.”
Dr. Ranbir Singh, the hospital’s trauma director, said Lavau told him he was driving to his home about 7 p.m. when he was temporarily blinded by the headlights of an oncoming car. He braked, but his car failed to gain traction. The car flipped and plunged down the embankment. He said he was unsure if he collided with the car.
A second car containing a male body was found next to Lavau’s vehicle, but it is believed to be part of an unrelated case.
That car, a Toyota Camry, was identified as belonging to Melvin Gelfand, 88, whose family had reported him missing on Sept. 14, said Los Angeles police Detective Marla Ciuffetelli of the missing persons unit.
Lavau spent the night in his wrecked car and crawled out in daylight. He found a stream nearby and ate ants, the doctor said. He found a flare in the other car and tried to light it, but it was expired. And he couldn’t find his cellphone.
Lavau could hear cars and see their lights on the road above and was hopeful that he’d be discovered, but as time passed, he grew more uncertain.
“He mentally said goodbye to his family. He wasn’t sure anyone would be able to find him,” Singh said.
Lavau’s children had reported him missing Sept. 23. A sheriff’s detective assigned the case turned up bank records showing Lavau had made a purchase in Oxnard in Ventura County on the day he was reported missing, and mobile phone records showed he had been in the same area.
The California Highway Patrol is investigating the accidents, trying to establish what happened.
