KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - News-Local Search and Rescue Team Member Laid to Rest

Local Search and Rescue Team Member Laid to Rest

06.01.09

SAN JOSE - It was one of the most difficult calls they have answered. 

With heavy hearts, paramedics from San Luis Ambulance took the body of one of their own to its final resting place.

24 year old Christopher Meadows was a son and a brother, a Cal Poly graduate, paramedic and search and rescue volunteer.

On Monday, more than 700 family members, friends and colleagues attended his funeral in San Jose.

Meadows died trying to help someone else at the Oceano Dunes.

He was responding to a first aid call for the search and rescue team when the ATV he was riding rolled.  Meadows was trapped beneath.

"Ironically, his service was intended to make San Luis Obispo County a safer place and unfortunately he was taken from us in a very tragic accident," says San Luis Obispo County Undersheriff Steve Bolts.

Meadows is the first member of the search and rescue team to die during a mission.

His death hit agencies from across the state hard, made evident by the line of nearly 20 ambulances that joined the procession.