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A man, cut off by heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada, gets his life-saving medication

Fresno County search and rescue teams are assisting mountain residents snowed-in and trapped by recent storms.
Fresno County Sheriffs Office
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Fresno County Sheriffs Office
Fresno County search and rescue teams are assisting mountain residents snowed-in and trapped by recent storms.

Read the transcript for this report below.


ELIZABETH ARAKELIAN, HOST: Sunny skies have given way to spectacular views of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Some mountain residents, however, remain snowed-in and cut off from necessities. KVPR’s Joshua Yeager tells us about one mission in Huntington Lake.

JOSHUA YEAGER: Snowed out terrain stretches for miles over the Central Sierra. Among the buried homes, a man is awaiting necessary medication. A few miles down in Shaver Like, firefighters handed the meds to a Fresno County search and rescue team.

[Sound of helicopter blades whirring.]

Aircrews piloting the Eagle One helicopter made the short flight to Huntington, where a low-altitude drop was made.

TONY BOTTI: The man was able to retrieve it.

YEAGER: That’s Tony Botti, Fresno County sheriff’s spokesman.

BOTTI: Now he’s set up with enough meds to hopefully get him through the time until he can finally come out of his home and get back down to Fresno.

YEAGER: Dramatic DoorDash delivery aside, Botti says he’s happy to report there haven’t been many emergency calls resulting from storms. And while the snowy Sierra can be tantalizing, Botti says mountain roads likely won’t be safe to navigate until next week, with another storm on the horizon. So that family snow trip will have to wait.

For KVPR News, I’m Joshua Yeager

Joshua Yeager is a Report For America corps reporter covering Kern County for KVPR.