Los Angeles (VINnews/Sandy Eller) – Chaverim of Rockland’s search and rescue teams tackle rugged terrain and prepare to face difficult conditions as they train for emergency situations, but the challenges they faced during the six days they spent looking for a missing 78 year old Jewish woman in California were among some of the most difficult they have ever encountered.

“We had some people saying to us, ‘You dirty Jew, get off my steps,’” Margaretten told VIN News. “Some called police on us.”

Margaretten acknowledged that the search through the rough and tumble neighborhoods of Los Angeles was incredibly harrowing, taking his members through the beautiful tree-lined of one of the city’s Jewish areas to rough and tumble neighborhoods and homeless encampments, in some cases paying people money to search their tents.

“This wasn’t like in Arizona where we were searching the forest to look for a child,” explained Margaretten. “This was going into the jungle.”

At one point, Chaverim members spotted a dilapidated RV, where they hoped to search for Litvin. At first, the homeless individuals who lived there made it clear that they wouldn’t allow them into the vehicle, only agreeing to let them in when a local askan accompanying the volunteers handed them $1,000 in cash.

“My members told me that the smell was so bad you couldn’t even breathe in there, but they still went in to look for her,” recalled Margaretten.

The Chaverim team resumed its search at 7 AM each morning, an effort that included begging, pleading and cajoling homeowners and businesses to share their security footage. In some places they were met with success, while at other times they were faced with outright hostility.

As the eighth day of the search dragged on with no solid leads, Margaretten felt that they had reached an impasse – his team had tracked Litvin’s movements for a full nine miles, but the trail had gone completely cold.

“We mamash started following the bus, figuring that that was where she had gone next,” recalled Margaretten.

With the bus heading south, Chaverim members narrowed their focus to hospitals located in that portion of the city, utilizing a list of hospitals provided by the LAPD that included administrator’s email addresses and their personal cell phone numbers. Later that day Chaverim volunteers hit paydirt, with a hospital administrator sending a nurse to see if an unidentified woman who had been brought in a full week earlier matched Litvin’s description. While a conclusive determination couldn’t be made, she contacted Chaverim and let them know that they had a possible match.

Margaretten and Hatzolah member Ari Sabag drove to Community Hospital of Huntington Park, a small one-story acute care facility with just over 75 beds, located 13 miles from Litvin’s home. Arriving at the hospital at approximately 2:30 PM, neither man was completely sure if the patient they were looking at was actually Litvin. With the woman unable to identify herself, Margaretten took another approach, asking the hospital staff to see the clothing the patient had been wearing when she had been brought in. Margaretten was elated to see that the clothing he was brought matched the description of what Litvin had been wearing on the day she went missing.

The emotion of that moment was beyond words, said Margaretten.

“I can’t even begin to describe it,” he noted. “My eyes were wet with joy.”

Margaretten didn’t waste any time, contacting Litvin’s family immediately to share the good news with them, and putting an end to nine days of heart-wrenching worry about her whereabouts. After a joyful reunion, Litvin was released into their care and brought back home in time for Shabbos.

Working the details backwards once Litvin had been found, the story emerged. Litvin had boarded the 206 bus on the same day she had gone missing, and wandered the streets of Southern Los Angeles for two days until a passerby found her laying on a Huntington Park street on April 17. Litvin was unable to identify herself when she was brought into Community Hospital suffering from dehydration, and with hospitals in Los Angeles receiving full reimbursements for housing unidentified persons for 10 days, there appears to have been no incentive to match her up with any missing persons reports.

Margaretten credited the Los Angeles community for opening its hearts and its homes to the Chaverim members, providing them with housing, food, transportation and a variety of resources. With Litvin found on a Friday afternoon, the community came through once again for the Monsey volunteers, providing the Chaverim team with everything they needed for Shabbos, including food, and a sefer Torah so they could have their own minyan.

Margaretten is well aware that after hearing the news that Litvin was found in a hospital, many people wondered why it took so long to find her.

“Things like this don’t happen in New York, where we have a list of liaisons in every hospital that I can call to check for a missing person,” said Margaretten. “There are 150 hospitals in Los Angeles, and there are no Jewish liaisons in any of them. The hospitals didn’t want to let us in or give us any information, although we did have a heimishe nurse in one hospital who checked to see if she was there.”

The fact that gaining access to surveillance cameras turned out to be a Herculean task was yet another reason why the search took as long as it did, leaving Chaverim members to put together a puzzle without having all the pieces.

“This was like looking for a needle in a haystack,” noted Margaretten. “We just had to go out and find it. Baruch Hashem, we were able to find her and bring her back home to her family.”