On the edge of death: Moment an unconscious 73-year-old driver was found deep in the Oregon desert after getting stranded for four days with his two dogs

Gregory Randolph hiked 14 miles with one of his dogs after his Jeep got stuck
He was barely conscious when biker Tomas Quinones found him on July 18
Quinones, of Portland, had not seen anyone as he biked across Oregon Outback
Sunburned Randolph could not talk and could barely drink water when found
Quinones had no phone signal for two days, so he pressed 'SOS' button on GPS



Quinones, of Portland, had not seen anyone all day as he biked across the so-called Oregon Outback, a sparsely populated expanse of scrub brush and cattle lands in south-central Oregon.

At first, he thought the strange lump was a dead cow.





'As I got closer, I thought, 'That's a funny looking cow' and then I realized that this was a man,' he recalled in a phone interview.

Quinones had not had phone signal for two days, so he pressed the 'SOS' button on a GPS tracking device he travels with in case of emergency.
An ambulance showed up more than an hour later and whisked Randolph away, leaving the dog.

He later discovered it would have been a six-hour ride to the next campsite with cellphone service had he not had his GPS tracking 'SOS' device.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7287059/73-year-old-dogs-rescued-4-days-remote-Oregon.html

Why'd they leave the dog?

"As I got closer, I thought, 'That's a funny looking cow' and then I realized that this was a man,' he recalled in a phone interview."

OK, the guy is overweight....we get it.

Oregon News
One dog was found injured after it ran back to his jeep.  
Don't go to wild places without brain, food, water, fuel, self rescue device (winch, high lift jack, etc.), a trip plan and tell someone.  Congratulations to the bicycle rider for saving him.

Hard to tell if he aired down his tires. Seems I recall an elderly couple that got stuck in a similar situation and died. The folks who recovered them aired the tires down on their vehicle and drove it right out. Sad.

I'm going to assume he had a 2-way SOS device and was able to tell them what was needed since he got an ambulance to come right off the bat.

Moral of the story...

Just because you have a vehicle that has 4wd, doesn't mean you can or should go off road; especially woefully unprepared and without telling anyone where you are going.  He was extremely lucky that someone who was much more prepared than him found him and prevented him from appearing on darwinawards.com.

The Oregon Live story said he had a SPOT.

It's a Jeep thing

Enjoy your sand and desert scrub while you are stuck waiting to be dead.

That part of eastern Oregon is NOT the area you want to get stuck/stranded in anytime of the year.

That desert gumbo dirt turns into impassable mud when wet.  Things could be fine one minute then you drive into that shit and you're not going anywhere, even on flat ground. When it dries it turns to concrete.

People do stupid things and pay the price at times.

I've had it in my want list for a while... but after this thread I'm considering hitting the buy button.

My mailman had a similar experience a couple years ago when he was zipping around the logging roads with his wife.

He and his wife were out on one of the logging roads way in the middle of nowhere when he came across a couple who, somehow, both rolled their fourwheelers off the road and down a ravine. The guy was pinned under his vehicle with a compound fracture to his leg, his wife was further downhill with a punctured lung, broken bones, and was basically an hour or two away from needing a priest more than a doctor. Mailman was driving along the road and saw the something in the heavy brush…the man had fastened a piece of clothing to a long stick and was waving it for help. They’d been out there, in the sun, bleeding and dying, for about an hour and a half.

Short version: mailman was able to climb up a hill and get a bar or two on his phone and dial in the local SAR. Not one but two helicopters managed to get there and find a landing spot, but it was tough describing exactly where they were in all that mess.

This is why whenever I go off the pavement I keep smoke and flares in the vehicle. Big ‘ol cloud of orange smoke, or a red cluster flare will do a good job of showing the guy in the door where to point the nose of the helicopter. Of course, knowing the UTM coords for where you are and being able to give that information to someone on the other end of your phone is pretty helpful, too.

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I have my Spot Gen3 right there on my handlebars above and to the right of the tankbag.

If I'm going off the beaten path it is clipped to my jacket.

I would clip it to me any time that I was on the bike.   I know three people that were in motorcycle accidents this year.   Only one of them ended up within reach of his bike.    He spend three hours with the bike on top of him before anyone found him.   I do not know if he was conscious during that time so it might be a moot point.   If he survives (still uncertain) then I will find out.

Be safe.

2Hut8

I'm 68 and often explore the national forests and remote backroads by myself on my little XT250 dual sport motorcycle.  I keep my InReach in my pocket in case I'm separated from the bike in a wreck.  It's around $16/month and I can suspend the account for any month I'm not riding in remote areas.  Cheap piece of mind for my wife.

People have no business whatsoever driving around in a place like that without at least having a cheap air compressor - which covers both flats, and airing down to get unstuck.

$150 worth of plastic sand ladders, and he could have driven right out of that even if airing down didn't work.

30 minutes of common sense preparation prior to setting out would have given him plenty of time to figure out how to solve his problem.

I help people in the ass end of nowhere all the time - and yet other people who aren't prepared for shit and are a rescue-in-waiting give me crap because I don't just hop into an empty truck and go.

How many people have gotten to trouble because they thought a 4WD could go anywhere?

I've seen a lot of people get into trouble in winter snow because they think a 4WD could go anywhere. Many of them didn't engage 4wd, had never engaged the 4wd since they've owned the vehicle and weren't even aware of such a thing as engaging 4wd.

No winch, no hi-lift, no mats.  No smart.

Isn't there water right there in that puddle the Jeep is stuck in?

Sure, it might be nasty but there are ways to clean it or at least make it safe to drink.

It sure looks like it but the OP says that he hiked 14 miles after he got the vehicle stuck.

Sounds like he had an in-reach.

I dont venture off road to the wilderness or even on a road trip any more without my Garmin inreach...... ever