Lost La Grande trucker walked 36 miles in snowy mtns.
(Update: Trucking co. owner says he actually walked 36 miles)
La GRANDE, Ore. (AP) – Authorities say a trucker who, along with his tractor-trailer, was missing for four days walked out of a remote area of Eastern Oregon on Saturday.
Around 10:15 a.m. Saturday, OSP was notified that the missing trucker, Jacob Aaron Cartwright, 22, had returned home and was en route to Grande Ronde Hospital in La Grande for an evaluation. An OSP trooper went there and confirmed it was the missing driver, said OSP Sgt. Kaipo Raiser.
“He was disoriented and confused this morning, but alert and coherent,” Raiser told NewsChannel 21.
Cartwright told the trooper he had encountered snow and mud on the road and his rig began to slide toward a steep embankment on a road whose name he was unsure of, but said he’d been on a road whose name began with a G.
Forest Service Road 51, also known as Grande Ronde River Road, is about 1 1/2 miles east of the area of the last known GPS location for Cartwright’s truck. It travels south of state Route 244, near milepost 35.
With the new information, an OSP aircraft was deployed and found the semi-truck and trailer around 11 a.m. Two La Grande-area troopers arrived about an hour later at the location, about 21 miles from Cartwright’s last known GPS location.
Cartwright said after his rig became unsafe to go any farther, he left on foot, traveling along FS Road 5125 and away from the direction he’d initially approached from, Raiser said.
Cartwright continued to walk in a northeast direction that Raiser said was estimated at more than 14 miles, Raiser said, before emerging from the forest at the 270 interchange of Interstate 84, about nine miles south of La Grande. (The owner of the trucking firm Cartwright works for says he actually walked some 36 miles.)
The sergeant said the walking route was at elevations of about 5,000 to 6,500 feet “as he crossed snowy mountain peaks and back down to Interstate 84,” Raiser said. He was then able to flag down a passing motorist who gave him a ride back to his La Grande home.
An initial investigation shows Cartwright may have had a problem with his GPS navigation and was routed off state Route 244 onto FS Road 51, where he traveled about 12 1/2 miles before turning onto FS Road 5125. He then went another nine miles until his right spun out and he began to slide toward the steep embankment along the road shoulder.
“This area is a remote and mountainous location that has very limited, if any, cellular service,” Raiser noted.
OSP assisted the Union County Sheriff’s Office and several concerned volunteers in the search to locate Cartwright.
A satellite tracking device on Cartwright’s truck, which started in Portland, showed he pulled off Interstate 84 while driving east toward Idaho on Tuesday. OSP said Cartwright was driving the 400 miles on Tuesday from Portland to Nyssa near the Idaho border.
