Friday, February 21, is a day that runner Joseph Oldendorf isn’t likely to forget for a long time. The avid runner was running in Olympic National Park around 5:00 p.m. when he slipped on some ice and broke his leg.
Reports indicate that Oldendorf was about 12 miles into his planned 20 mile run on the remote Duckabush River Trail. Without any cell service in the area, Oldendorf had to formulate a plan to be able to keep moving.
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Little did he know that he was going to have to crawl on his hands and knees for the next 7 hours before he would be able to call for help.
By the point he was able to get cell reception in the park, his knees were so raw that he had worn most of the skin off them. He had to put his shoes on his knees in order to keep going and gain traction.
The way his leg was broken, he had to crawl close to the ground or else the jarring motion on his ankle would throw it out of alignment.
He finally got reception around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. He phoned 911 hoping they could get to him.
It took emergency services almost 4 hours to reach Oldendorf. Temperatures had dropped down to the lower 30s while he was waiting on them to rescue him.
Oldendorf kept moving while waiting for them to find him. His original thought was to lay there and try to stay warm and wait, but it was too cold for him to stay still.
A Coast Guard helicopter crew finally airlifted Oldendorf, who was hypothermic by this point and took him to Harborview Medical Center for treatment of the injuries he had sustained.
Oldendorf described it as being in a weird dream. He said that he knew his only chance was to keep moving. He hadn’t even planned on his cell phone working.