Fog and bad weather had dramatically reduced the area where California Highway Patrol Officer Steve Ward could fly in his search for a missing father and his three children. So, with fellow officer and paramedic Dave White at his side, Ward flew his rescue helicopter on Wednesday down one of the few areas where it was still clear enough to see the ground 300 feet below.

“We were being forced out,” Ward told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira on Thursday, less than a day after what’s being called a miraculous rescue of the family. “The weather was pushing us out of the canyon. We were slowly working our way out. We were on our last pass.”

With another storm moving in, aerial searches were going to be impossible. And Frederick Dominguez, 38, and his three children, Christopher, 18, Alexis, 15, and Joshua, 12, had already been lost for three days in the snowbound mountains.

The father had taken the children up into the mountains near Paradise, Calif., 100 miles north of Sacramento, on Sunday to find the perfect Christmas tree and had gotten lost. When the kids didn’t show up at school on Monday, their mother, Lisa Sams had alerted authorities, and for the following two days huddled with her family in her home, waiting for word from rescuers, who found Dominguez’s truck, but not the family.

The father and his children had taken refuge from the snow in a culvert near a stream. They huddled together for warmth, and Dominguez cut his sweatshirt into strips to wrap around his children’s feet to keep them warm. The four were dressed in winter parkas, but without food or fire for warmth, their chances of surviving another storm weren’t good.

Video   Missing Calif. family found alive Dec. 20: A father and his three kids who vanished on a Christmas tree-cutting trip in California are found alive. NBC's Michael Okwu reports. Today show

“They didn’t have much time left,” Ward said.

‘It was amazing’
But on that last pass, as White was checking a map, Ward looked down through the nose bubble of his helicopter and saw a man emerge from a culvert. He told his partner he’d seen someone, and then White saw a message made out of twigs in the snow: “HELP.”

“It’s just pure luck that we saw him down there through the tree line,” Ward told Vieira. “We made a couple of orbits, and then we saw the ‘help’ inscribed in the snow, and we knew we’d found the party.”

As Ward set the chopper down, Dominguez came running toward it, and the troopers had to tell him to stay back until the rotor blades stopped. When they did, the kids came running out of the culvert, elated that their ordeal was over. Joshua hugged White tightly and began to cry.

“It was amazing,” said Ward. “There was hugs, there was tears. It was a joyful time for everybody.”

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