SAR News: Daughter enters hospital - Minor Frostbite

Rescued Teenager Returns To Hospital After High Sierra Rescue

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PARADISE, Butte County (CBS 5 / AP) ― A teenager rescued the day before in the High Sierra returned to the Hospital early this morning.

The High school student who was one of four family members rescued after three cold nights and days stranded in the Northern California Sierra mountains was sent back to the hospital Thursday morning after telling her family her feet hurt.

The family's ordeal began Sunday after they went into the forest near the rural foothill town of Paradise, about 100 miles south of Sacramento northeast of Chico in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas., to cut down a Christmas tree.

Alexis Dominguez, 15, was hospitalized for pain in her toes from minor frostbite. Michelle Nye, a spokeswoman for Feather River Hospital in Paradise, says Dominguez was admitted to the hospital shortly after 2 a.m.

Alexis, along with her father, Frederick Dominguez, 38, and her two brothers, Christopher, 18, and Joshua, 12, were rescued late Wednesday afternoon after they were spotted by a CHP helicopter working with search and rescue members in the area, The California Highway Patrol rescue helicopter was making its last pass because another storm was beginning to cover the mountain range with yet more snow.

During the three days and nights the family was trapped in the snow, the young girl lost one of her shoes. Her father said he took off his sweatshirt, tore up the fabric and wrapped it around Alexis' feet, hoping to stave off frostbite.

The girl's mother said Alexis' toes had become discolored in recent days but that her father had kept rubbing her feet to try to keep them warm. On Wednesday, Sams said color had begun to return to Alexis' toes while she was recovering in the hospital.

After getting their tree, they became disoriented and began wandering through the woods. The next day, they found a small culvert carrying a creek beneath a dirt road and hunkered down as a storm dropped more than a foot of snow and left drifts up to 7 feet high.

The family survived with only minor frostbite, doctors said Wednesday, despite spending three nights in the wet and cold with only jeans, sweatshirts, light jackets and sneakers. Temperatures plunged into the 20s during the days they were missing.