Air, ground search finds Prineville rancher, 82

An extensive search effort, which included an AirLink air ambulance following footprints in the snow Thursday night and Air Force forensics specialists in Florida poring over cellphone data, led rescuers to an 82-year-old Prineville rancher who’d become lost after his truck got stuck in the frigid cold east of Bend.

John Goodwin was found lying in the snow, cold and wet but otherwise OK, authorities said Friday.

Shortly before 5 p.m. Thursday, Deschutes County 911 dispatchers received a call from a woman who said her father, Goodwin, was lost and walking in the snow somewhere east of Bend in the area of Highway 20 and state Highway 27, which heads north to Prineville, said Lt. Bryan Husband, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue coordinator.

The man’s daughter said she’d just talked to Goodwin, who reported his truck got stuck in the snow while trying to drive to his ranch the day before.

It was believed Goodwin spent the night in his truck, then tried to walk out Thursday. The woman also told dispatchers her father, who has dementia, sounded disoriented on the phone.

Husband noted that temperatures during the search had dropped to about 19 degrees.

Four DCSO deputies headed to the area, while dispatchers worked on “pinging” Goodwin’s cellphone. But Husband said the area “has numerous pockets of poor cell reception,” so the results were “unreliable.”

Ten SAR volunteers also responded to help, along with three other deputies. AirLink also was contacted and advised they’d have a flight crew available to assist around 7 p.m. Crook County sheriff’s deputies also were contacted and responded, as the search area is on the border of the two counties.

The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center in Tyndall, Florida was contacted and SAR asked their cellular forensics specialists to help pinpoint Goodwin’s location using cellphone data, Husband said.

The center contacted the sheriff’s office around 7:30 p.m., identifying a likely location for the missing man within about 850 meters. It was an open area on Breau of Land Management land northeast of Merrill Road, off Highway 27, Husband said.

AirLink and ground crews were directed to the area, and around 8:10 p.m., the helicopter crew spotted Goodwin’s truck in the search area and spotted footprints in the snow, leading away form it.

The helicopter crew was able to follow the footprints about a half-mile from the truck and found Goodwin lying in the snow about 10 minutes later, Husband said. AirLink relayed the GPS coordinates to those on the ground, who traveled as far as they could by vehicle, then hiked and snowshoed the remaining 300 yards.

The SAR volunteers and a deputy found Goodwin around 8:40 p.m. Husband said his clothes were wet and he was showing signs of hypothermia.

The volunteers quickly began warming Goodwin, using pads to get him off the snow. They then carried Goodwin back to their vehicles and brought him to Highway 20 East and George Millican Road, where they met Bend Fire Department medics, who further assessed him, then took him to St. Charles Bend for further treatment.

“The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank Air Link and AFRCC for their assistance, which expedited the search and rescue process significantly, potentially saving Goodwin’s life,” Husband’s news release concluded.