Survivorman

guest commentary by Jack Moseley, award-winning columnist and former editor of the Southwest Times Record

National or individual survival depends on faith, attitude and people coming together to help one another. I think of America during the Great Depression and those hardest hit by today’s economic mess. And I think of myself and what happened to me the other day.

While inspecting some land I own in East Texas, I became disorientated and lost in a sweltering, 100-plus degree thicket of bamboo, bugs and blackberry vines. I knew I could die, but I never believed I actually would, unless I suffered a heat stroke, a heart attack, a fall that broke bones or a snake bite.

It began when I entered the woods about 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 12. I told my companion, Mary Hartley of Fort Smith, I shouldn’t be very long.

She and my dog Ben waited three hours, then tried to find me on their own. It was useless, because the deeper into the forest they went the more difficult it became. Mary wrote a note and hung it on a tree: “Jack, it’s 11:30, I search for you. I’m scared. I love you.”

It was about that time that I realized I was in deep trouble. I had entered the ticket thinking I could get through it and reach the fence I was seeking near a creek, but about an hour in, the 10-to-18-foot tall bamboo rods were four to six inches apart. The wild blackberry vines were pulling against my legs and chest. I had forged through them, breaking the vines with my body as I moved on.

Somehow, instead of crossing the thicket, I got turned and was simply struggling through the length of the wilderness. By noon, I did not have a dry thread on my body. I could no longer stand.

On hands and knees, I kept going, not stopping to think how bad off I really was. My body ached; I lost my glasses, then the cell phone that did not work in the thicket.
Awhile before I just stopped, I had heard a voice call my name. I had yelled back. Mary later told me she had called for me repeatedly, and once heard a reply that was either “Hello” or ‘Hell, no.” Neither of us ever heard another human sound that entire morning. Even my dog had better sense than to enter that thicket.

I thought. I talked to God. I didn’t ask for anything. I figured I’d get out of this mess by myself or would be rescued. Neither of those things was happening, however.

I began to pace myself. Crawl for five minutes; rest for five. About 3:30 p.m., I heard the search helicopter and mustered enough strength to trample and pull back about a 10-foot-wide circle of bamboo. I staggered to the middle of that circle as the helicopter made its first pass in my direction. I tried to wave my shirt, but fell to the ground. Each time I got up, I fell again. Finally, I put my shirt on a tall shoot of bamboo that was still growing out of the earth, lay on the ground and waved it back and forth with my hands. They never saw me, and the chopper flew away. Strangely, I was never afraid.

The lack of food and water was taking its toll, but I managed to keep pacing myself until it was too dark to see. I couldn’t sleep on the ground; there was no room because of the closeness of the bamboo poles. All I could do was fall backward into the bamboo and let the weight of my body bend it into a kind of upright bed. I talked to God some more and soon discovered you run out of things to say to Him. I counted fireflies and watched the moon rise and pass over me. At some point, I did sleep or pass out. When I opened my eyes, a drop of dew fell on my face. I pulled myself up and began licking the dew off of leaves. I also chewed and swallowed a few sweet gum leaves.

I decided I was not going to be found. I started singing a song my mother sang when I was just a little boy. “He leadeth me, He leadeth me. By His own hand, He leadeth me.” I seemed to get a second wind, and I saw the top of what I assumed was a tall cypress tree in the distance. I made it to that tree, and that was where the thicket ended. Still, no sign of rescue.

I stumbled and rolled down to the creek, drank muddy water and began walking in the creek in the direction of where I knew there was a highway. I reached the highway bridge, and it took 20-to-30 minutes to crawl up the embankment to the road, where I collapsed. A passing trucker found me and took me to the search command post. An ambulance was waiting; so were dozens of searchers on four-wheelers, volunteers, convicts, lawmen from a 30-mile radius, searchers on horseback, volunteer firemen and more.

The foliage had been so tight in that thicket that all those people had never heard me and I had never heard them. I’m glad I had not known why they thought I would not come out alive. In the deep of the night I had heard some “dogs” in the distance. The searchers feared the packs of coyotes that roam those parts might find me and chew me to death. There would have been no escape for me in that thicket.

Some would say rest and the dew from the leaves gave me a second wind. I’m sure that helped, but personally, I think it was much, much more than that. The people who were searching for me prayed; so did members of churches in Fort Smith and East Texas. I told the Lord, I did not want to die but would if that was his choice. Maybe that also was a prayer. And I sang that song over and over again as I moved toward that cypress tree.

Survival depends on faith, attitude and people coming together to help one another.

Life, luck and -30-.
 
FOOTNOTE: I did not find out until Monday after I was back in Fort Smith that they did not let Mary go to the command post until after they had brought in the cadaver dogs to search for my body. They didn’t want her to know about them or the coyotes. Her family, however, had been notified to get someone down from Arkansas to be with her in the event the worst had happened.