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Author
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Topic: Why?
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Lonny
PANTS ON THE GROUND
Member # 19
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posted May 09, 2011 12:58 PM
Probably old news by now, but I find this story amazing in the fact that something like this seems to happen a time or two every year.
Not to make light of the ordeal the lady went through because she is dang lucky to be alive, but it seems like often a gps and a mini-van are part of the problem along with an intense desire to not turn around even though the pavement ended a long ways back.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42953750/ns/us_news-life/t/doc-woman-stranded-weeks-was-close-dying/?GT1=43001
Posts: 1209 | From: Lewiston, Idaho USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Dave Allen
Hi, I'm SUPER DAVE, IN CHARGE OF Q STUFF (and Goat Leader) "I'm really not trying to be a dick".
Member # 3102
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posted May 09, 2011 03:25 PM
Yep, I'm taking a guess here and saying they followed the route that the GPS said would be the shortest ?
I'm guessing they turned off Idaho hyw 51 and headed someplace ? dont know where ? NE Nevada and Elko county is big country.
You would think they would just stay on the hyw ? The back roads turn into a slick "gumbo" real quick in the ION..
[ May 09, 2011, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: Dave Allen ]
Posts: 1986 | From: Jordan Valley Oregon | Registered: Aug 2008
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted May 09, 2011 03:32 PM
Well, I can't divulge where Scott, Dave and I were stuck in mud up to the door handles, (just about) in March, But. We were fortunate to have two vehicles. And, Dave might have been saying Deja Vu all over again when he hiked out 30 miles last time. But, gee! It looked passable early that morning, before the thaw.
And, as for me, I know the area quite well, but felt like an idiot for telling Huber that the mud wouldn't be a problem.
Well, never mind that I have NEVER been up there in spring conditions, but I learned what Dave was worried about. I wasn't all that worried until we started digging. We were in sort of a seep area where melting snow was flowing across the two track we came in on, and the only way out was a lot more soggy than near by higher ground.
I mean, I can feel for those people, the only solution is getting help and where are you going to find it? Remote area, very few people. I just wonder who the hunters were that found them, and what they were hunting?
gh/lb
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 32370 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Lonny
PANTS ON THE GROUND
Member # 19
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posted May 09, 2011 03:59 PM
Dave, I figured you might know the country they got stranded in and have some insight.
I got to hand it to that lady for staying with the vehicle and surviving for 7 WEEKS! Good gawd, I'd taken my chances against the elements and nature weeks before that and probably died just like her husband...
Leonard, Turkey hunting maybe, varmints, or looking for antlers. I would doubt that is a black bear hunting area. Can you imagine coming across a stuck vehicle with a person in it and they tell you they have been there for almost 2 months!
edit-spelling
[ May 09, 2011, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: Lonny ]
Posts: 1209 | From: Lewiston, Idaho USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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lwilliams
Knows what it's all about
Member # 3821
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posted May 09, 2011 04:19 PM
That has happened a couple times around here where people traveling turn off a perfectly good maintained road and go onto a dirt road simply because the gps told them to take a left. Some people need to pull there heads out and look at the situation. When traveling between major cities one rarely needs to hit dirt roads in this day and age.
Posts: 20 | From: Gillette, Wyoming | Registered: Apr 2011
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DAA
Utah/Promoted WESTERN REGIONAL Hunt Director
Member # 11
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posted May 09, 2011 06:08 PM
I know the area where they got stuck pretty well too. No idea what might have happened to the husband, and I'm not second guessing him, I wasn't there and he was, but if he didn't feel totally confident in being able to walk all the way back to the hiway, he should have stayed there with his Wife I'm afraid. Barring accidental injury or letting himself get caught in and killed by the weather, it really shouldn't have been all that hard to walk back out the way they came. But, for all I know, the guy was old, out of shape, poorly dressed, let himself get totally exhausted and cold and from there it's not much of a jump to a hypothermia induced poor decision or two and needlessly froze to death the first night?
A rotten shame. These folks might not have been prepared or familiar with the environment and most definitely made some bad decisions, but they certainly didn't deserve this.
- DAA
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"Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em." -- George Hanson, Easy Rider, 1969.
Rocky Mountain Varmint Hunter
Posts: 2676 | From: Salt Lake City, UT | Registered: Jan 2003
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Dave Allen
Hi, I'm SUPER DAVE, IN CHARGE OF Q STUFF (and Goat Leader) "I'm really not trying to be a dick".
Member # 3102
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posted May 09, 2011 09:44 PM
Ya know, I've been stuck in the ION for those not familiar with that term (Idaho-Oregon-Nevada)country more times than I care to admit.
The most I've had to walk was 8 miles, I know DAA has been thru worse. One time I got stuck,near South Mountain, on the Idaho/Oregon border. I had a camper on back with a ATV trailer. VIA the ATV I was able to ride too a ranch house.
Those were gold ole' boys,it took two pickups too get me out, a chain from my rig to one pickup and another to the second pickup.
I hit one of those "seeps" I guess you would call it ? and yes on a two track road. In September..Those folks as Dave mentioned were ill prepared I'm sure..Sad to hear about, I cant help but to wonder what all took place ?
[ May 09, 2011, 09:46 PM: Message edited by: Dave Allen ]
Posts: 1986 | From: Jordan Valley Oregon | Registered: Aug 2008
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Kelly Jackson
SECOND PLACE/GARTH BROOKS LOOK-A-LIKE CONTEST
Member # 977
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posted May 10, 2011 07:13 AM
I can't open the link for some reason, but note to self. If ever chasing coyotes in the ION, make sure 4 wheeler in the back of truck is full of gas and take extra cigars.
Posts: 997 | From: Comanche OK | Registered: Oct 2006
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Dave Allen
Hi, I'm SUPER DAVE, IN CHARGE OF Q STUFF (and Goat Leader) "I'm really not trying to be a dick".
Member # 3102
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posted May 10, 2011 07:44 AM
Kelly here's a copy 'n paste of the link.
A Canadian woman who lived off trail mix, fish oil tablets and candy for seven weeks in the remote Nevada mountains was upgraded to a solid diet Monday, and hospital officials said her spirits were "extremely high" despite nearly starving to death.
A search team mounted horses and all-terrain vehicles in a bid to find her husband, 59-year-old Albert Chretien. He set off on foot March 22 to get help after the couple got stuck on a muddy road in northeastern Nevada while on a road trip to Las Vegas.
Rita Chretien, 56, of Penticton, British Columbia, was scheduled to remain at St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, where she was upgraded to a regular diet Monday morning.
She started with yogurt and dairy products and told doctors she prefers rice over potatoes and salads, the hospital said. She will have her choice of six small regular meals per day as she continues physical therapy.
"Her spirits are extremely high," said hospital spokesman Ken Dey said in a statement. "The medical team is watching her closely, but indicators of her recovery are very good."
Hunters found Rita Chretien on Friday, after they spotted her van mired in mud on a national forest road in Elko County, Nev., near the Idaho border.
Alone in the rugged and isolated country, Rita Chretien survived on a tablespoon of trail mix, a single fish oil pill and one hard candy a day, her son, Raymond Chretien, said Sunday.
She reportedly lost 20 to 30 pounds during the time she was stranded, and family members and doctors agree she faced the prospect of death had she not been found.
Raymond Chretien said his mother relied on the Bible during her ordeal, returning again and again to Psalm 86, which includes the passage: "Hear my prayer, Lord, listen to my cry for mercy. When I am in distress, I call to you, because you answer me."
Back in Penticton, the Protestant church the couple has attended for about 12 years held a special celebratory service on Sunday — Mother's Day — to honor Rita Chretien's reunion with her family.
"After seven weeks of prayer and anticipation for Al and Rita to be found, it was like receiving somebody back we thought had died," said the Rev. Neil Allenbrand of the Church of the Nazarene. "We are a people of hope, so we believe he (Albert Chretien) will either be alive with us, or alive with his Lord."
Rita Chretien told investigators she last saw her husband when he set off for help on foot with a GPS unit three days after they got stuck.
Searchers acquired a GPS like the couple's in an effort to retrace the route Albert Chretien told his wife he hoped to take to the town of Mountain City, 16 miles from the Idaho border.
Rain and snow kept a search helicopter grounded Monday, but about 30 people continued the hunt on horses and ATVs.
With temperatures still in the 30s, search team members say they're holding out hope that Albert Chretien found shelter in one of the old ranch or mining buildings that dot the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest in the lower 48 states at 6.3 million acres.
"It's very rugged," said Lesli Ellis, a Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman. "We're hoping for the best. There are areas of shelter up there."
The Chretiens own a commercial excavating business and were headed to Las Vegas for a trade show. They were last seen on surveillance video March 19 while stopping for gas in Baker City, Ore., a small ranching town about two hours west of Boise.
The two later became the subject of a search by Oregon State Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other law enforcement agencies. Vehicles and aircraft scoured the back roads that crisscross the remote region near the Snake River where they were last spotted.
The city of Penticton, on the shores of Okanagan and Skaha lakes just north of the Washington border, set up a fund to aid in the search for the couple.
Numerous tips came in during the week after they went missing, but none indicated the route the couple had taken. The Canadian police major crime unit was involved because of concern the two were victims of foul play.
Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton said Rita Chretien's discovery was almost unbelievable.
"If it's not a miracle, it's damn close to a miracle, that she was able to survive for that period of time," Ashton said Monday. "We just hope it will be a similar outcome with Mr. Chretien."
The couple got stuck after taking a scenic detour on their way south.
Raymond Chretien said that during the intervening seven weeks, his mother got out of the van and walked every day. "She had books she was reading," he said. "She had time to read some twice."
The Chretiens' ordeal is another reminder of the danger unprepared motorists face when they stray on rarely traveled back roads with the threat of foul weather.
In 2006, TV personality James Kim died of hypothermia after he, his wife and two children became stranded in the remote mountains of Oregon.
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Associated Press writer Josh Loftin
[ May 10, 2011, 07:47 AM: Message edited by: Dave Allen ]
Posts: 1986 | From: Jordan Valley Oregon | Registered: Aug 2008
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Kelly Jackson
SECOND PLACE/GARTH BROOKS LOOK-A-LIKE CONTEST
Member # 977
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posted May 10, 2011 07:59 AM
thx Dave. That is a heck of an ordeal.
Posts: 997 | From: Comanche OK | Registered: Oct 2006
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conservative1911
PAKMAN
Member # 3828
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posted May 10, 2011 11:18 PM
Friends back east laugh at me when I talk about a "go-bag". When I go fishin', huntin', atvin' or scoutin'. It's heavy but has everything I need for me & my dog for a long unexpected stay.
Posts: 2 | From: NW Wyoming | Registered: May 2011
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Dave Allen
Hi, I'm SUPER DAVE, IN CHARGE OF Q STUFF (and Goat Leader) "I'm really not trying to be a dick".
Member # 3102
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posted May 11, 2011 08:17 AM
I was scouring my map this morning trying to figure out what they were trying to accomplish, and re-read the article.
I missed this the 1st time I read it.
(The couple got stuck after taking a scenic detour on their way south.)
Turns out they were driving a 2wd 2000 Chevy Astro van, those are RWD.
The hunters, on ATV's who discovered her, as it turns out were hunting for deer and elk sheds.
I'm gonna' try and post a video link that some may find interesting.
http://www.ktvb.com/home/Elko-County-Sheriff-Not-Giving-up-Hope-for-Missing-Canadian-121513154.html
Posts: 1986 | From: Jordan Valley Oregon | Registered: Aug 2008
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UTcaller
NEVADA NIGHT FIGHTER
Member # 8
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posted May 11, 2011 09:53 AM
Yeah that ION area can be a mean SOB.Lots and lots of Vastness thats for damn sure.Rough going with Atv's and 4x4's let alone a 2 wheel drive van. Very sad deal for sure.
Good Hunting Chad
Posts: 1708 | From: Utah | Registered: Jan 2003
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