Document text
Deadly dunes Photo by John Griffiths Curry County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Adcock stands at Indian Sands, where his search and rescue team lost the trail of John Spears the night in February that his wife reported him missing. Treacherous cliffs seduce the unwary By JOHN GRIFFITHS BROOKINGS -- The spectacle of surf crashing against the cliffs at Indian Sands Beach has lured five people over the edge in recent years. Only one survived. Authorities recovered the body of another. The surf and unknowable underwater caves and body traps held the other three, leaving relatives to wonder how their loved ones died. "The people who have been lost there, it's a slim, slim chance that they would ever be rescued," says Sandy Spears, 57, of Brookings. On Feb. 24, Spear's husband of 40 years, James Spears, 62, disappeared at Indian Sands. Police found his pickup parked at the top of the trail that night, and one of his shoes several days later in a nearby cove. "He didn't like the real high heights and he definitely didn't like the water," Spears says. "Whether it was just a wild wind gust, whether he slipped, none of us are really ever going to know that answer." Indian Sands, part of Samuel H. Boardman State Park, is about seven miles north of Brookings. It it is in the middle of a rugged section of coastline, from Hooskanaden Creek on the north to Whalehead Creek on the south, most notable for its spectacular cliffs and offshore rocks. Thomas Creek Bridge, at 345 feet the highest in Oregon, spans a narrow draw next to Indian Sands. Just north is Natural Bridge, which on April 6, 1998, claimed the life of 44-year-old Merlin sport fisherman Rodney Milburn. A big wave pulled him from a ledge that is normally a safe distance above the waves. The Coast Guard lowered a rescue swimmer from a helicopter to try to get to Milburn. Waves batted the swimmer like a volleyball before Deputy Larry Adcock, search and rescue coordinator with the Curry County sheriff's office, ordered that the rescuer be hoisted out, leaving Milburn to die in the 15-foot surf. Adcock and his team of rescuers died a little emotionally. "We couldn't get to him," says Adcock. "It was physically impossible and extremely hazardous. I have never, ever seen the morale so low, because we couldn't do anything. We had to stand there and watch. It's hard on the volunteers when you train and train and train and you can't do anything about it." Indian Sands claims the most victims. They fall over cliffs varying from 70 to 200 feet high along 300 yards of shoreline. The dunes at the edge of a switchback trail look as safe as bowls of golden sugar, encouraging downhill runs across them. The ocean appears to be farther away than it really is. Without warning, the dunes stop at the edge of the cliff. Spears says she and her husband knew the area and its dangers. Since retiring to Brookings four years ago after selling recreational vehicles for 27 years in Klamath Falls, the Spearses went to Indian Sands for picnicking and storm watching. The day he disappeared, James Spears had bought a new pair of shoes and stocked up on razors and toothpaste. With all his experience with RVs, he was a natural to do handyman chores at the Whaleshead Beach Resort, where they lived. He and Sandy planned to meet later that day in downtown Brookings. Sandy believes her husband finished a job early and decided to spend the extra time he'd earned with a quick trip to see one of the most powerful storms of the year blowing into Indian Sands. Don Higginson, area manager for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, knows the death toll as well as anyone. The department routinely catches criticism from people who want places like Indian Sands made safer, and from those who say Oregon has enough signs and fences already. "It's very hard because everyone has their own definition of what they feel the department should be responsible for," says Higginson. "People need to be responsible for their own actions, in a sense that they need to be aware of nature." Nobody has asked for a fence at Indian Sands yet, says Higginson, but the department put up more warning signs after James Spears' disappearance. Sandy Spears has not been back to Indian Sands. She hated the area in the early days after her husband's disappearance. With more time to think about it, her respect for Indian Sands returned. She also does not want to see its natural beauty spoiled. "It would be such a shame to change anything about it. It would be such a shame to alter it at all. And I also know you could put all the fences around it, and somebody would just climb the fence," she says. "Just leave it alone." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA