Stanislaus Sheriff Christianson hospitalized after injury during reservoir search

Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson remained hospitalized Tuesday, two days after he was injured while watching the search for two boys at Woodward Reservoir.

The sheriff said he returned from a trip to Montana on Saturday.

“I had already known what was going on (at Woodward),” he said of two Oakland teenagers who drowned after jumping out of a boat. He headed out on Sunday to observe his dive team’s recovery effort.

“They’re using that new dive scanning sonar unit,” Christianson said. Though the sheriff had seen the unit used in training, he wanted to see it deployed in an actual operation. “It’s amazing technology.”

The trouble happened when Christianson returned to shore via jet boat.

“Like I’ve done dozens of times before, I just jumped off the bow and landed on the shore,” said Christianson, who previously worked boat patrol at the reservoirs. “Both knees made some really weird noise, and down I went.”

The noise was the rupturing of ligaments that connect the quadriceps muscles. It also came with a lot of pain, the sheriff said.

He was admitted to Doctors Medical Center and underwent surgery on Sunday. On Tuesday, Christianson said he expected to go home Wednesday and return to work in a few days. In the meantime, he has been working remotely from his hospital bed.

“I’ll be hobbling around for a while,” said Christianson, adding he can walk with the braces on his knees, albeit “like a penguin.”

“I’ll be at work even if it’s on crutches or in a wheelchair,” the sheriff said.

He also said he was relieved that deputies recovered the bodies of both boys on Tuesday.

“The team did a great job out there,” he said. “Most of these deputy sheriffs have children of their own, and it makes it that much more difficult.”

This story was originally published May 31, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Stanislaus Sheriff Christianson hospitalized after injury during reservoir search."