A runner said he crawled for almost seven hours before he could call for help after he snapped his ankle in the Washington wilderness.
“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,” Joseph Oldendorf, 26, told KIRO 7. “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.”
The 26-year-old said he had been running on the Duckabush Trail on the Olympic Peninsula when 12 miles into the 20-mile long run, he slipped on the icy floor and broke his leg on Feb. 21 evening.
Oldendorf said his tibia had “completely snapped off,” leaving his ankle “flopping.” With no cell phone service to call for help and only lightly dressed at sub-freezing temperatures, he crawled on all fours back the civilized world.
“I had to be facing chest down for it not to be flopping out of alignment,” Oldendorf told the Seattle station from his hospital bed at Harborview Medical Center.
About six miles and six hours later, his phone finally picked up some signal and could he call 911 for help. It was 12:45 a.m.
“I had no idea how long it was going to be, and I knew that I was still probably six miles down the trail,” said 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.”
Oldendorf crawled another near four hours, until finally, close to 4:30 a.m., he could be located by rescue workers.
“This is definitely a rugged part of the Olympic National Forest,” said Jerry Rule of the Brinnon Fire Department, according to KIRO7. “We actually found the patient about four and a half miles in, which is pretty unusual for a typical fire department to go in.”
After receiving emergency treatment on the spot, Oldendorf was airlifted by an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter of the Coast Guard to the Harborview Hospital in Seattle at about 7 a.m.
“What kept you going?” KIRO7 reporter Michael Spears asked Oldendorf at the hospital.
“I don’t want my family to hear I died in the wilderness,” said Oldendorf. “I think it’d be unbearable.”
