Emery County Sheriff’s Office finds missing family at Joe’s Valley

By PATSY STODDARD Editor

The Emery County Sheriff’s Office was involved in a rescue near Joe’s Valley over the weekend. The night shift on Feb. 10 had received an attempt to locate on an overdue party who had been due at Ephraim for a family function. Sgt. Gayle Jensen checked out the Joe’s Valley area and found the missing mother and four children at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday morning. The family was OK. They had been stuck in the snow and a mountain lion hunter in the area had pulled them out.
Sgt. Jensen followed the family to the sheriff’s office where they were given breakfast and reunited with family members.
The Fisher family was the lost party involved in the search this weekend. They were from Las Vegas, Nev. They were reported overdue to Ephraim at approximately 1:30 a.m. on Sunday. The driver, Karena Fisher had reportedly missed the turn off of I-70 onto SR-89 and she had continued eastbound on I-70.
A call had been traced from Fisher’s cell phone as having bounced off the Cedar Mountain repeater at approximately 8 p.m. on Saturday night. After that time, a trooper traveled from Green River to the Fremont Junction and another traveled the road to Loa, Hanksville and back to Green River attempting to locate the vehicle. There was also a deputy who had traveled from Fairview to the county line and back. Another trooper had come from Salina to Fremont Junction and back to Salina with no luck.
When Sgt. Jensen came on shift Sunday morning he determined that he would go search the Joe’s Valley area and Deputy Kay Jensen would search the Ferron Canyon Road. Sgt. Jensen located the missing party as they were coming back down the first turn on the switchback. They were escorted by Ed Curry who had pulled the vehicle out of the snow. Curry said he had located the party approximately 300 feet west of the Grassy reservoir turnoff. This is one half a mile west of where the Palmers vehicle was located two weeks earlier.
The missing family followed Sgt. Jensen to Food Ranch where they fueled up the vehicle. The husband and grandparents met the missing party at the sheriff’s office. The grandparents had been looking all night for the missing family.
Fisher advised Sgt. Jensen that her vehicle had become stuck at approximately 6:30 p.m. and they had tried to get the vehicle out until about 8:30 p.m. She said she kept trying to call and left a message but that was earlier. She said it began to snow around 7 p.m. They spent the night in their vehicle. The lion hunter located the party about 6:55 a.m. Sunday morning. He helped pull the vehicle out. The only mishap seemed to be the broken rear window of the vehicle when the tow rope snapped and the chain hit and broke the back window. Everyone in the missing family was OK. There were three children and a niece with the Fisher family.
Ironically this is the same road where the elderly couple went missing two weeks ago and lost their lives. Sheriff LaMar Guymon immediately contacted the forest service and told them to barricade that road. He then contacted the county road department and told them to immediately barricade and make sure the road closed signs were in place.
The road was blocked and signed by approximately 11 a.m. on Feb. 11.