Icy Whirlpool Kills 3 on Hike as Heroics Fail

On a day that began in celebration, three friends died together in an icy whirlpool at the foot of a waterfall high above Palm Springs, a tragedy spawned by camaraderie and heroism.

Authorities, who had been searching rain-swollen Murray Canyon since Sunday afternoon--when one of two survivors led them to the remote site--recovered the last body Monday.

“I know I should be dead but somehow, through the grace of God, I’m not,” said John Torchia, 20, a lifeguard who vainly struggled against spinning currents to rescue his dying friends and his dog. “Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces.”

The dead, all from Riverside, were identified as Steve Lopez, 19, Clayton DeFrese, 21, and Charles Kikuchi, 20. DeFrese and Kikuchi drowned trying to rescue Lopez.

The group of close friends often hiked together and shared their hopes for the future. But in recent months, their lives had begun to move in separate directions. On Sunday, they decided to get together for a reunion of sorts, to celebrate Kikuchi’s birthday and give a send-off to Torchia, who would soon be starting anew in Berkeley.

The day began when the young men gathered at John (Eric) Coffee’s house and went to breakfast at a Denny’s restaurant, where Kikuchi got a free meal because it was his birthday. With Torchia’s dog, Buddy, trotting alongside, they then hit the trails of Murray Canyon, a favorite hiking spot in the mountains just south of Palm Springs. After walking the steep terrain for several hours, the “brothers,” as they dubbed themselves, decided to head home.

“It was a perfect day,” Torchia said tearfully in a telephone interview. “Then it got real ugly.”

On their way back, about 2 p.m., they stopped at “the rock slides,” where they would ride down river-slicked boulders. All but Torchia had done it before and thought it was great fun.

“That was my first time there, the guys had done it many times before. I just figured it was safe,” Torchia said. “From where we were standing, we couldn’t see there was a whirlpool.”

Lopez went first--and disappeared. His four friends figured he was clowning around. So DeFrese jumped in to see what was going on. Within 10 seconds, the swift current had tossed him to the bank. “He’s in trouble! He’s in trouble!” DeFrese shouted after he had climbed to the shore and spotted Lopez in the whirlpool. Despite the frigid water, he jumped back in and fought the currents until he reached his friend.

Meanwhile, Torchia and Kikuchi jumped in to help save their friends. “I had some hesitation,” Torchia said, “but when I realized (Lopez) was in trouble, I had to help him.”

By then, Lopez was purple from the cold, his eyes were open but he was unconscious. Using his lifeguard training, Torchia tried to revive him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as DeFrese struggled to hold Lopez’s head out of the water.

But Torchia knew they were too late. He screamed at DeFrese to let their dead friend go, to release the grip he had hoped could save him. Now it was time for Torchia, DeFrese and Kikuchi to save themselves as the currents swept them beneath a rock ledge.

With icy water pounding at their chests, they could barely stand. Just keeping their heads out of the water took all their strength as they were repeatedly sucked underneath. “I tried a couple of times to get out,” Torchia said, “but just fighting the current was exhausting.”

Torchia realized that his water-filled high-top sneakers were making his legs heavy and he struggled to kick them off. Torchia could see that Kikuchi and DeFrese’s faces had become pinched and white as they clung to a rock wall. He knew they were beginning to suffer the numbing effects of hypothermia. And he knew he had to get out of the water to save himself and them.

Hand over hand, Torchia inched along the wall. “I focused on my breathing. I let the current slam me against the wall.” Buddy stopped barking on the bank and jumped in, too. The swift currents quickly plowed him under.

With adrenaline and panic pumping through him, Torchia managed to crawl out of the whirlpool. When he reached the bank, he grabbed one of the day-hike packs they had cast aside. Holding one strap, he tried to toss the other as a lifeline toward Kikuchi and DeFrese. It was beyond their reach.

“I’m so cold,” Kikuchi moaned.

Torchia tried to edge closer. “I was leaning and lunging, trying to get them to grab the pack. Then I got swept downstream,” he said. When he again pried himself free from the water, he headed for help.

“I knew if I stayed in the water any longer I was going to die,” Torchia said. “When I got out of the water, that was all the strength I had. I was completely frozen. I ran across the desert, screaming the whole way that I needed help.”

As the ordeal unfolded, their other friend Coffee, who had not jumped in, also went for help. After a 2 1/2-hour hike back up the steep canyon walls, he told authorities of the horror in the hills.

On Sunday afternoon, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies reached the whirlpool that had claimed the lives of the three young men. The team found the bodies of Kikuchi and Lopez.

On Monday, the sheriff’s deputies and the Palm Springs Mounted Posse returned to Murray Canyon, where they found DeFrese. That morning, all three bodies were taken out of the area by helicopter.

DeFrese’s father, Gary, said he often counseled his son to be extra careful on hikes. “You can warn somebody 100 times and still things happen,” he said. “You can’t warn him not to go help his friends.”