Local Trail Rescues on Pace for Record Year

The Malibu Search and Rescue Team has already responded to 75 rescues in the Santa Monica Mountains and nearby beaches in 2012, up 10 percent from 68 over the same period last year.

The team -- which is comprised of 30 volunteers, including reserve deputies, nurses and other civilians -- logged 128 call-outs in 2011, an all-time high, according to David Katz, a reserve sergeant who serves as the group's public information officer.

The increase this year can be attributed to the increase of YouTube videos showing jumps from waterfalls, especially at the Rindge Dam, and the popularity of online “meetups.”

At the Rindge Dam, two deaths have been reported, one a suicide, in the past eight or nine months, according to Katz.

At least eight of the rescues this year were at Escondido Falls in Malibu, he said.

"They all involved inexperienced people with the wrong footware. It’s beautiful in there. It’s a spectualr view and a beautiful area. They get up into an area where it is wet and mossy," Katz said.

The falls have various drops that range from 100 to 30 to 15 feet, according to Katz.

The team lives all over the Santa Monica Mountains, so some respond directly to the rescue while other go to the Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff's Station to pick up the rescue vehicles.

Sgt. Tui Wright of the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station said in a recent interview that it doesn't take much to get in trouble out on the trail.

“There really is a lack of common sense out there and people do a lot of things to put themselves in peril,” Wright said.

Volunteers are needed to serve on the Malibu SAR.

"We do it for a love of community and for fellow men, women and child. We're taking times away from families and careers to help out everyone else," Katz said.