Doctor killed; son survives 24-hour ordeal
15-year-old escapes into woods; suspect in shooting of two others arrested
An off-road adventure trip a Danville doctor took with his teenage son in a forest near Lake Tahoe turned into a nightmare over the Fourth of
July weekend when the father was fatally shot and the boy spent more than a day lost in the woods after escaping from the alleged attacker.
The stunning news out of Sierra County left family members, friends and colleagues reeling this week as they remembered the father — Dr. Ari Gershman, 45, a pulmonary physician — as a thoughtful, caring and devoted family man with a passion and love for the outdoors.
According to the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office, the 15-year-old son was found safe Saturday after a 24-hour-plus ordeal in Tahoe National Forest.
A suspect also sought in two other shootings over the weekend was arrested Saturday, authorities said. Police have not released a motive for any of the shootings or the name of the suspect.
The Sierra County sheriff said the office would release more details later
this week.
According to a relative’s account on Facebook, Gershman bought a Jeep the day before “to be able to share his love of the outdoors with his kids. It was his first time out and he was so excited to experience the trails he had extensively read about for so long.”
As they looked at a map, the driver of an all-terrain vehicle pulled up behind them and they turned around to ask directions, according to the relative’s post.
“The man out of nowhere started shooting at the Jeep,” hitting Gershman, the relative wrote. It’s not clear how the relative, who couldn’t be reached for comment, knew those details.
The saga of multiple shootings unfolded around 4 p.m. Friday when sheriff’s deputies responded to reports that two people had been shot in a remote northwest area of the county, according to Sierra County sheriff’s posts. Deputies later learned those victims were taken by private vehicle to Cal-Ida, an unincorporated Sierra County town, before a medical helicopter flew them to a hospital for treatment.
They were both expected tosurvive.
Soon after, deputies were called by the 15-year-old, who told police he had escaped a person who shot his father and had lost his bearings.
When deputies arrived at the Jeep, they found a shooting victim, who was
pronounced dead. But they were not able to locate the teenager.
“We sat there for 24 solid hours listening to over 70 selfless people search,” said the relative, who drove up to the remote Sierra County area with her cousin, Gershman’s wife Paige.
The relative said, that “24 hours later, after drinking from a stream, covered in bug bites and scratches, and hiking in dense forest in his shorts, searching for a way out,” the boy was found.
A couple of hours later, sheriff’s deputies saw and tried to detain a suspect driving an all-terrain vehicle matching descriptions provided by the earlier shooting victims. The vehicle headed south on Saddleback Road toward Downieville, but deputies stopped it and arrested the driver about a mile north of Highway 49.
The relative described Gershman as “a giving, selfless, do-anything-foranyone guy who married the love of his life and had an amazing family and network of friends.”
Others were quick to weigh in with comments on social media.
Vis Niranjan, a consulting chief medical officer, posted on LinkedIn: “Ari and I worked together at Atyr Pharma. Ari was a quintessential gentleman. A family man. A brilliant pulmonologist. This is so senseless”
“Ari was an avid bicyclist, a vegetarian, an outdoorsman, a pulmonary doctor, a devoted and loving father and fantastic friend that was willing to drop anything for his friends and family,” a GoFundMe campaign statement said.
The campaign seeks funds to assist Gershman’s wife, Paige, a former speech and language therapist for special-education preschool classes at Greenbrook Elementary School, who is now undergoing chemotherapy to treat cancer, and to support the couple’s three children.
Chris George, director of communications at the San Ramon Valley Unified School District, said “our hearts and condolences go out to the family.”
As of 3 p.m. Tuesday, the GoFundMe campaign had raised nearly $290,000 from more than 2,700 donors toward a $350,000 goal.