Please help bring James Kim home…

December 5, 2006

As you may have heard from the national media, a harrowing search for one California family has had a remarkable twist: Kati Kim and her two children, missing in the Oregon wildnerness for 9 days, have been found safely. Her husband, James Kim, is still missing, having left on foot last Saturday to find help. Here’s the story from CNN:

GRANTS PASS, Oregon (AP) — Snowbound with their daughters — one a 4-year-old, the other 7 months — Kati and James Kim tried to keep warm by running their car engine at night.

When the gas ran out, they burned the tires for heat and cuddled as a family to stay warm. When the food ran out, James Kim ate wild berries, uncertain whether they were safe, his family said. His wife nursed the children.

The story of their struggle in the wilderness emerged Tuesday as the search intensified for James Kim, a senior editor for CNET Networks, while his wife and daughters recovered at an Oregon hospital. (Watch as mother and young children are rescued )

The family has been apart since early Saturday morning, when Kim left his wife and girls in their frozen car and set off to seek help. He wore only tennis shoes, a sweater and a jacket.

Trackers with special training and four helicopters, some with heat-sensitive sensors, joined the intensified search Tuesday for Kim, 35, of San Francisco.

Oregon State Police Lt. Doug Ladd said there is “a very reasonable chance” Kim is still alive and that the family said he had some outdoor experience.

On Monday, Kati Kim, 30, flagged down a helicopter search crew with an umbrella. She and the children were rescued and trackers followed Kim’s footprints until dark.

They were able to determine what direction he had headed, Josephine County Undersheriff Brian Anderson said. The search was focusing on a five-mile stretch from the car, along a steep canyon toward the Rogue River, he said.

The mother and daughters, Penelope and Sabine, were in good condition at Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass, where the baby was admitted and the other two stayed overnight, said Linda Rankin, vice president for patient care at the hospital.

Kati Kim might lose one toe because of the cold, her father, Dr. Phil Fleming, said Tuesday as he and his wife, Sandy, awaited a flight to Oregon.

He said his daughter breast-fed the two children to keep them nourished during the ordeal and “the children are doing extraordinarily well.”

“You think about a soldier being killed or an individual in a car accident, and you often time wonder how difficult that is,” said Fleming, of Gallup, New Mexico. “But take a whole family and subject two kids to it — it’s just unbearable.”

The family saw friends in Portland on November 25, then headed toward home after a Thanksgiving trip to the Pacific Northwest. They were last spotted at a restaurant that day. They had reservations at a lodge, but never arrived.

Anderson said the family turned off a side road and got stuck in the snow. The family had been driving along rural roads that are often used as shortcuts to Gold Beach on the south Oregon coast. The roads are typically used by whitewater rafters in the summer, but often are treacherous and impassible during the winter.

As a senior editor for CNET in San Francisco, James Kim covers digital audio and co-hosts a weekly video podcast for the Crave gadgets blog on CNET.

Kati owns a great boutique that sells a variety of beauty products in San Francisco. You can view photos of James Kim and leave a message of hope for his family at the family’s website. If you have seen James, please call (800) 452-7888. And please keep sending good thoughts their way…

UPDATE (12.06.06 at 4:10 pm): James Kim died trying to rescue his family…he is a hero and our warmest thoughts are with his family. Details here.