Saturday, May 30th, 2026, at 6:50 a.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in California. The requester, Samuel Alvarez, submitted the following information: “It’s a Toyota Tacoma 2019 4×4 left side got caught in a ditch about 2 feet down so I don’t have much traction, trail to get to the spot is not that rough dry through out, car turns on and drives / I’m not with the vehicle”
Our administrator, Al Fontan, contacted the requester and verified the contact information provided, GPS location, and current situation before sending the request to local volunteers. In this particular recovery, we contacted volunteers within a 15-mile radius.
From the group of contacted volunteers we had Alex Csak and Harout Semerjyan marking themselves as engaging and taking over the recovery. Alex was 30+ miles away while Harout was only at around 20 miles. By mid morning they team up and both jumped into action.
The recovery was completed 3:30 p.m. we later received a note from Alex with a photo we share down below.
From Alex
We ended up using two winches with a double line pull on each of them. I do wonder if the first gentleman that was helping with the recovery may have had some success with a more complex rigging setup like a triple line pull or a Spanish Burton. It was a pretty quick recovery once we had both winches.
We want to thank both volunteers for a great job. You guys are amazing.
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