Injured runner rescued after crawling for seven hours on all fours to call for help
The 26-year-old drags himself along the remote trail in sub-freezing temperatures after breaking his leg
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Your support makes all the difference.A runner who broke his leg on a remote trail on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state is said to have crawled for nearly seven hours on his knees before being able to call for help.
Joseph Oldendorf told KIRO 7 he slipped on ice and broke his leg three inches up from the ankle while he was running back to the Duckabush trailhead at around 5.45pm on Friday.
Speaking from his hospital bed in Seattle to KIRO 7, Mr Oldendorf said: “I had to crawl on all fours and my knees – it’s a rocky, snowy, dirty, wet trail – and after a while, my knees were just raw.
“So, I had the idea to put my shoes over them so I would at least have some traction and a little bit of protection, but they’re still really messed up."
After struggling for hours on the snowy trail at below-freezing temperatures Mr Oldendorf said he finally managed to get cell phone service to call for help at around 12:.0am on Saturday.
“I had no idea how long it was going to be and I knew that I was still probably six miles down trail,” said Mr Oldendorf.
“I stopped to lay down and stay warm, thinking they might be there relatively soon, but I was way too cold and there was no way I could do it without moving, so I just decided to keep moving towards them.”
The runner continued to crawl on all fours until 4.30am when he was located by rescuers. He told KIRO 7 that the thought of his family kept him moving.
“I don’t want my family to hear I died in the wilderness,” he said. “I think it’d be unbearable.”
A Coast Guard helicopter crew arrived around 7am and airlifted the 26-year-old to Harborview Medical Centre for treatment. He was said to be hypothermic when found by rescuers but has since been released from the hospital.
Mr Oldendorf is thought to have crawled along the trail for over 10 hours in total before he was airlifted.
Firefighter Jerry Rule who works for the Brinnon Fire Department was in the team of rescuers to reach the runner first. Mr Rule described Mr Oldendorf to KIRO 7 as a "lucky guy".
“Doesn’t take much to take you out of the game up on those trails and by yourself,” he said. “He’s a lucky guy. We on our way out, after evacuating him by helicopter; we only ran into two other individuals and they were not going as far as we were.”
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