When last week's boating tragedy in Mexico claimed the lives of two UC Davis researchers and three other scientists, countless people from across campus and beyond quickly stepped forward to help. Numerous UC Davis faculty and staff members took on difficult new roles -- including traveling to Mexico to identify the body of one of the dead, consoling grieving families and friends, bringing back the survivors, and talking to scores of news reporters. Many did so even as they were struggling with their own grief for environmental science and policy professor Gary Polis and postgraduate researcher Michael Rose, who both died in the March 27 accident. Two of the four survivors, although reluctant to publicly relive the ordeal, agreed to speak to a news conference when they returned home three days later-in part to thank the many people who helped them. An exhausted Gary Huxel, a postgraduate researcher in the environmental science and policy department, expressed his gratitude to a long list of people who rescued him and other survivors and searched for the bodies of those who died. "Thank you so much to everybody who helped us get through this, bring us back home...," Huxel said. "I want to thank everybody who kept us in their minds and in their prayers." The international search-and-rescue efforts were widely reported. They included help from people of the Mexican village of Bahia de Los Angeles, the Mexican Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and Earthwatch Institute, a nonprofit conservation group that organized the research expedition in conjunction with UC Davis. Numerous faculty and staff members, administrators, students and supporters played critical roles in handling the crisis as well. Huxel, in particular, cited Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean Neal Van Alfen and "some really wonderful people" in the environmental science and policy department, including information systems manager Bob Brewer and postgraduate researcher Francisco "Paco" Sanchez-Pinero. When word of the accident reached the environmental science and policy department on Tuesday, March 28, Brewer, Sanchez-Pinero and student assistant Nate Roth volunteered to travel to Mexico, according to Rick Markgraf, the department office manager who also played a pivotal role last week. The trio believed the university should have someone on the scene, and they had skills to offer. Brewer previously worked as an emergency medical technician and had search-and-rescue training; Sanchez-Pinero had worked with Polis, knew the area in Mexico and speaks Spanish; Roth had search-and-rescue training. The three flew to San Diego that afternoon and picked up a van, borrowed from UC San Diego with the help of UC Davis' Fleet Services, to drive to Baja California. They arrived in the village of San Quintín about 12:30 a.m. There Brewer, Sanchez-Pinero and Roth helped the rescue efforts-even buying gasoline for some in the search teams-and telephoned information back to campus. On Thursday, March 30, they drove the survivors back to San Diego, where the group was met by UC Davis officials. Among those were Vanderhoef, Van Alfen, assistant deans Tom Kaiser and Connie Melendy, environmental science and policy professor Paul Sabatier, and Public Communications Director Maril Revette Stratton. Brewer then drove back to San Quintín, where he identified the body recovered that day as Polis' and arranged to return his remains to Davis. Meanwhile, the campus was being besieged by telephone calls and visits from news reporters, friends and relatives of the expedition members, and Japanese government officials. Two of the scientists who died and a third, who was missing and presumed dead, were ecologists from Kyoto University. Marj Dickinson and Matthew Hargrove in government and community relations sought help from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, and Rep. Doug Ose, R-Sacramento, in getting permission from the Mexican government for the U.S. Coast Guard to join the search. Markgraf, of the environmental science and policy department, served as a campus point person in discussions with the Coast Guard. He also handled scores of calls from distraught families worried that a relative may have been on the ill-fated expedition. A number of other staff members in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences took care of the details bringing the UC Davis group home. They included: Randy Southard, interim associate dean of environmental sciences; Kaiser, assistant dean of administration; Melendy, assistant dean of personnel; Susan Kancir, an administrative specialist in the dean's office; administrative analyst CeCe Krek; and administrative assistant Donna Damanchyk. During the week, college publicist Rhoda McKnight handled calls and e-mail from relatives and friends of the expedition members. Administrative assistant Malena Teeters, who speaks Spanish, was helpful in gathering information from several Mexican offices for San Francisco Japanese Consulate visitors. The Public Communications Office's News Service worked long hours gathering rapidly changing information, answering hundreds of queries from reporters, families and friends worldwide, and coordinating numerous news conferences to provide the media and the public with the latest details. Several news reporters praised News Service Director Lisa Lapin and public information representatives Lisa Klionsky, Sylvia Wright, Pat Bailey, Paul Pfotenhauer, Julia Ann Easley and Kathleen Holder for their handling of the tragedy. A number of people participated in those news conferences, often at short notice. They included Vanderhoef, Van Alfen and Counseling Center Assistant Director Emil Rodolfa. Alan Hastings, environmental science and policy professor, put a human face on the loss, speaking at news conferences two days in a row about friend and colleague Polis. Others worked behind the scenes to help ensure those news conferences went smoothly, from college publicist McKnight, who helped prepare and provided props such as a podium, to library staffers who quickly found a map of Baja California. Public Communications Webmaster Craig Hillis and Dateline editor Susanne Rockwell created a Web page where relatives, colleagues, friends, news reporters, and other members of the public could go to read news updates, as well as tributes to those who perished. Nearly 80 tributes and official statements had been received and posted by Wednesday morning. Broadcast specialist Pfotenhauer, who normally produces "Newswatch at UC Davis" reports for public television station KVIE, chartered the turbojet that brought the survivors from San Diego to Sacramento. Pfotenhauer also worked with UC Davis, airport, Sacramento and Yolo County law-enforcement agencies to provide extra security at Sacramento International Airport. News Service representatives who coordinated the airport news conference praised UC Davis police officers in particular for being compassionate, helpful and professional. The survivors' trip home was an emotional journey as well for the many UC Davis representatives who accompanied them. Vanderhoef, Van Alfen, Kaiser, Sabatier, Melendy and Stratton awaited them at the Mexican border. Vanderhoef returned to the San Diego airport to meet the just-arrived families and friends of the Japanese scientists as well as Japanese consulate representatives. Counseling Center Director Judy Mack traveled to San Diego, where she counseled the parents of two survivors and talked with the families and friends of the Japanese scientists. She also accompanied the survivors on the plane ride home, talking with them about their experiences and inviting them to see her again after their return. Public Communications Director Stratton helped the survivors prepare for the anticipated Sacramento International Airport news conference. Employee Health Services Director Tom Ferguson went after hours and on short notice to the Sacramento International Airport to meet a survivor needing treatment. In addition, Sally Harvey, director of the Academic and Staff Assistance Program, began on Wednesday, March 29, to counsel staff and faculty members and other community members close to Rose and Polis. Others from off campus lent a hand. Patty West, a University of Arizona graduate student on the research expedition who assisted with rescue efforts, traveled to Sacramento to support the UC Davis survivors. West appeared with them at the news conference at Sacramento International Airport. Earlier that same day, she spoke to reporters at the U.S.-Mexican border, taking some of the media heat off the exhausted survivors. Besides providing the van for the environmental science and policy team, UC San Diego provided other help. Assistant Vice Chancellor for University Communications Winifred Cox drove Vanderhoef and Stratton from the San Diego airport to the border crossing to meet the expedition members. She accompanied Vanderhoef back to the airport to greet the Japanese researchers' families and assisted with media relations. Her help enabled Stratton to remain at the border crossing to talk with reporters there and to accompany expedition survivors to the airport. A number of visiting Japanese scholars at UC Davis offered to translate throughout the episode. They included Nariuki Fujita, a visiting English-as-a-second-language instructor at University Extension, Kenji Murata in molecular and cellular biology and Katsu Yamazato, who is here translating works of English professor and poet Gary Snyder.