Central California mother searches for 5-year-old son swept away in January floods

SAN MIGUEL – Lindsy and Brian Doan drove to the edge of the Salinas River on Saturday, their trunk full of shovels and a chainsaw, to return to an unbearable task: searching for the remains of their beloved 5-year-old son.

Like they did last weekend, they planned to trudge across the river to a vast sandbar and break apart balls of tangled branches, looking for a flash of red from the trim of Kyle’s dark blue puffer jacket, or neon yellow from the swoosh on his Nike tennis shoe. When the searches first began, sheriff’s crews discovered one of Kyle’s shoes, but not the other.

It’s been seven weeks since Kyle was swept from his mother’s arms after their Chevy Traverse SUV was caught in floodwaters on the way to school. January’s epic storms killed 21 people in mudslides, tree falls, storm surges and floods across California. Since his body was never found, Kyle is still considered missing. And while his mother still holds a secret hope that a homeless person may have plucked him from the river that Jan. 9 morning and is keeping him safe, she is trying to be realistic.

She wonders if he might be buried under the sand, that the frigid waters may have preserved his body. So when she picks up a shovel, as she has nearly every weekend, she is careful when she digs.

“We tried to do it as shallow to the ground as possible, just in case we hit anything because obviously I don’t want to hurt him or damage his body,” she said. “We’re basically scraping the sand and dirt.”

She needs to find him. She’s begging for help.

In the early weeks after the brown-eyed boy disappeared, hundreds of emergency crews from the California National Guard and surrounding sheriff’s departments joined the search, using aerial drones and underwater sonar devices, helicopters, dive teams and cadaver dogs. In the days after Kyle disappeared, both President Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom shared their anguish.

“We won’t give up until we find Kyle,” Newsom said during one news conference. “And hopefully, miracle of miracles, he’ll be OK.”

Kyle’s parents are now wondering if those were just empty words.

It didn’t help when someone from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s department suggested to Lindsy that ongoing searches may be futile, that “he may very well be in the Monterey Bay by now,” she said.

For three weeks, she said, no one but family and small groups of volunteers have been actively looking for Kyle. They are using money donated to a gofundme account to rent excavator equipment and buy lunches and gas cards for volunteers who travel long distances.

“We do get this feeling like they tabled Kyle as a cold case now,” Brian Doan said of authorities. “They’re not being forthcoming anymore. They don’t seem to want to return our calls or texts as promptly.”

Their frustration boiled over when Lindsy wrote one letter, then another last week, to Newsom and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson.

“It’s been excuses….’We’re waiting for the weather to get warmer. The water needs to recede more. It’s too cold for the dogs to come out.’ I get it. You’re tired,” Lindsy wrote in the Wednesday letter. “But again I ask. If it was your child, when would you give up?”

In responses to inquiries by the Bay Area News Group, the sheriff’s department on Saturday said crews will resume the search when “weather conditions and water levels permit.”

The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said in a statement Friday that the “full weight of the state remains behind the local officials leading the efforts.” After Lindsy’s first request, the state waived the permitting process to use excavators along riverbanks.

Still, the Doans feel like they’re going it alone now. They’ve purchased kayaks and wading boots and, without official cadaver dogs, have deployed their own family dogs: Murphy, a rescued shepherd bulldog mix, and Willow, who is part dachshund and likes to dig. They tied the long arms of one of Kyle’s favorite toys, a purple and green stuffed monkey, around Murphy’s collar.

“We were told that if you have the family dog and tie something of Kyle’s with a strong scent, that they can actually help with sniffing,” she said.

Last weekend, Murphy seemed to linger near a log, but it turned up nothing.

For the past three weekends, Brian, Lindsy and a small group of volunteers have trudged across the ankle-deep Salinas River near the historic mission town of San Miguel to a wide sandbar covered in leafless trees and mounds of branches piled behind them. The Doans’ 18-year-old son, Tyler, and 16-year-old daughter, Melanie, have joined the effort.

Lindsy has picked up a shovel nearly every time. A red scar on her neck flares up from time to time. It’s the only remaining physical sign of her traumatic ordeal.

She hates to think about that horrific morning, but it keeps replaying in her head. She had been driving Kyle to Lillian Larsen Elementary school where she is a special education teacher and he was a kindergartener. It was the first day back from winter break.

Water covered the two-lane country road where San Marcos Creek crosses, but it looked the same depth as it was the night before when the family crossed safely. No warning signs were posted. Quickly, the SUV started to drift and fill with water.

Lindsy managed to climb out and brace herself against a tree and beckoned Kyle to come through the driver’s door. She grabbed his little hand, but with her arm awkwardly around a tree branch and the current moving swiftly, they lost each other’s grip.

“No!” she called out as he drifted away. She let go of the tree branch to float after him, she said, but was pulled underwater again and again, rammed and scratched by tree trunks and sharp branches. Then, she lost sight of him.

Every time she came up for air, she yelled “Help!” hoping that someone would see Kyle in front of her. A couple who owns a creekside farm rushed to the edge and glimpsed a figure floating ahead of her, but the boy was gone before they could reach him. With a rope, they managed to pull Lindsy to shore.

“I lost, I lost, I lost my baby,” she told them.

On Saturday, Brian — with Lindsy and her mother, Lynne Gomez-Yim, at his side — carried his chainsaw to the muddy edge of the river, five miles downstream from where Kyle vanished. With last week’s rains, most volunteers had canceled their plans to come. One showed up from Morro Bay, however, with a $100 bill and a hug.

The fog hung low and the river looked wider and deeper than they expected. Water that had been ankle deep last weekend was surely waist high now. The sandbar they planned to search again was impossible to reach safely. It was yet another disappointment for the Doans.

With the shovels still in the trunk, they took the long way to their home west of San Miguel. Lindsy still can’t bear to drive, especially past the fateful spot on San Marcos Road.

But she refuses to give up searching for Kyle. In the house, she keeps everything nearly the same way he left it.

Christmas decorations are still up. Cookies he made with sprinkles are ready for him in the freezer. A Scooby Doo toy on the entry hall table is still where he left it, and when a friend of Kyle’s came over recently and picked up the toy, Lindsy blurted out, “No, please don’t touch it.”

They know they are stuck in a horrendous limbo, but it’s the only way she knows how to keep her boy close.

“I feel like when he comes home, if he sees that things are moved, it’s going to feel like we moved on without him,” she said. “I don’t want him to think we moved on. I need to feel that he’s somehow still with us.”