January 13, 2006

Doug Mincey goes into cardiac arrest at scene of plane crash

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

A small airplane crash in the hills of Coyote Lake Park that killed a family of four led to another devastating tragedy last month—the death of Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Team volunteer Doug Mincey.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department has placed this memorial to Doug Mincey on their web site.

Mincey died after going into cardiac arrest two days after his team had began searching for crash survivors. His death has had a devastating effect on the all-volunteer search-and-rescue team as well as on many law enforcement agencies that had come to respect him for being dedicated to saving lives.

On Dec. 21, at approximately 9 p.m., a red and white Cessna 172, with a Fresno couple and two small children, slammed into a heavily wooded hillside bursting into flames just west of the park.

Three eyewitnesses described the plane, en route from the San Martin airport to Fresno, as having engine trouble.

The 58-year-old Mincey’s team was immediately deployed to look for survivors. He was “running the show” from a high-tech command center he had set up from his four-wheel-drive vehicle, full of radios and scanners that aided him in his work.

The next day, search teams from San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, as well as the Civilian Air Guard, joined the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office in the search for the plane.

On Dec. 23, at approximately 8:30 a.m. a Civilian Air Guard search plane located the wreckage.

That same day, Mincey, Jeff Thomas, the team’s director, and other search and rescue workers hiked to the plane’s location, less than a 30-minute trip from the command post, something normally done when they’re relatively close.

Mincey and Thomas wanted to take pictures of the accident and write down notes to debrief and train the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Special Operations Division, of which the team is a member. Soon after arriving at the site of the crash, at about 4:30 p.m., Mincey is said to have become faint and lost consciousness.

California Department of Forestry, Gilroy Fire and Sheriff’s deputies responded to an emergency call for help from Thomas. Upon arrival, CDF personnel were unable to revive him.

Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Deputy Serg Palanov, who was at the scene of the crash, was in disbelief when he learned that Mincey had died. He said Thomas, too, was shocked by his death.

“We’re all taking it very hard,” Palanov said. “He had just passed the fitness hike in October. He was in relatively good shape, and it wasn’t an issue with him going out there.”

The volunteer team, highly trained to conduct successful search and rescue operations, was told about Mincey’s death the next day when it was called for an emergency meeting, he said.

“It was obviously a very somber mood. There was a lot of crying. This guy was the glue that held everyone together. He was always super willing to help out and show things to people,” Palanov said.

Palanov said Mincey would be sorely missed as he donated thousands of personal hours to the group and spent a lot of money out of his own pocket to outfit his four-wheel-drive vehicle with search and rescue equipment.

“It became the main mobile command center that they would use in any event,” Palanov said.

Santa Clara County sheriff’s Lieutenant Frank Damiano echoed Palanov’s grief. “Words can’t really explain the loss of Doug Mincey, not only because of what he meant to the search and rescue team but the fact that he was a very good human being,” Damiano said.

After working with Mincey for more than a year, Damiano said he realized from the beginning that “the amount of energy and dedication toward his position as assistant director of search and rescue was going to be impossible to replace.”

Damiano said Mincey “had a tremendous interest in helping people.”

During his memorial service the morning of Dec. 30 at Calvary Church in Los Gatos, more than 200 search and rescue workers from Santa Clara County and other counties in the region paid their respects to their friend and his family, including officers from the Santa Clara County Fire Department, the California Department of Forestry, Santa Clara County Parks Department, Emergency Medical Services and other law enforcement personnel.

“Everyone knew the amount of time he put into search and rescue work,” Damiano said. “If one person put in 400 hours a year voluntarily Doug had put in 1,000. Over and over again people speak about the kindness he showed toward his co-workers and the wonderful relationship he had with his wife and children. He was a very religious person.”

At the beginning and at the end of the service the officers created a corridor for Mincey’s family to pass through. The sheriff’s office posted an honor guard at a portrait of Mincey and also at the entrance to the church. In addition, a member of the special operations command staff presented his wife, Gail Mincey, and his two grown children, with a folded sheriff’s office flag during the service.

“He was such a good human being,” Damiano said. “We were all shocked at his death.”

Mincey worked full-time as director of sales support for San Jose-based semiconductor maker Altera. He had joined the team in October of 1993.

During the past 12 years he had dedicated thousands of volunteer hours to training, organizing and conducting search and rescue events. In addition to the vast amount of time that he devoted, he personally outfitted his own four-wheel drive vehicle as a fully operational command center.

During his tenure with the team, Mincey assisted on the high profile cases of Polly Klaus and Xiana Fairchild. He was always one of the first on scene, and one of the last to leave, Palanov said.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team was formed in 1989 to assist city, county, state and federal agencies in times of emergency.