Local Man And Friend

Narrowly Escape Tragedy

By Ronald Fischer

bcj_fischer@yahoo.com

Editor’s Note – The following account was written by LeRoy “Andy” Anderson, who spent much of last week locked in a life-or-death struggle with Mother Nature. Thanks to the efforts of good friends – and certainly a bit of help from Above - Anderson and his companion emerged from the ordeal alive and in fairly good condition.

Thank you so much to the Harry Liddle family.

On Tuesday, August 15^th, I was traveling in the deep south of Blaine County near the Missouri River with a friend, Paul English. My pickup broke through a dry creek crossing and was high-centered on the front bumper and front frame section.

Paul and I were unable to get the pickup out, and after waiting a while, we decided to backtrack by walking. Our plan was to ascend a trail out of the coulee upwards at least 600 feet, following Spencer Ridge Road seven or so miles, then hike four or five miles up Cow Creek to the Harry Liddle Ranch. In retrospect, leaving the pickup and taking this course of action was our biggest mistake. We had no food and only two 1-pint sip cups for water. 

The old crossings were washed out and after about an hour, we were no longer able to look back and determine which coulee the pickup was in as it was out of the line-of-sight and individual coulees tend to get lost among the many others. At this point, we felt committed to continuing on to the Liddle Ranch, and pressed on.

Tuesday night, I found a freshwater spring. The spring contained good water, and filled my sip cup; Paul and I had gotten separated. It rained all night; we had no jackets – only T-shirts to protect us from the elements – and were soon soaking wet and extremely cold. I remember experiencing some violent shivering from the cold and wet, and had to tighten my muscles to stop this.

Somehow, the sip cup tipped over in the dark and I lost the water.  On Wednesday morning, we were able to relocate the spring and refilled the cup. I found Paul and filled his sip cup with water. During the night, he has lain on cactus and was very uncomfortable; also, he had fallen and injured muscles in his hip.

We continued walking through Wednesday. We found a small pool in Cow Creek and filled our sip cups and spent the night near some cabins with no roofs and little shelter.

Thursday, we decided to stay at these old dilapidated cabins until help found us as we had walked continuously since Tuesday afternoon. Since our sense of direction and location had been scrambled due to landscape and terrain, we figured that if we stayed put and waited, we would be better off. We had had no food since each ate a sandwich Tuesday afternoon and were out of water again. Our strength was beginning to fade, and we had no energy to search for another pool on the creek. Where we were, it had dried up.

Words cannot express our joy when, on Thursday at about 3:00 or 4:00 p.m., Mark Liddle and his friend, Mendy racing up in their ATVs with very warm jackets. 20 minutes later, we were in their home, warming up, eating pancakes, bacon, eggs and drinking hot coffee and water – and a warm bed afterwards. The next day, they needed a trip to town and Harry drove us in with him. 

This was truly a God-blessed example of Western hospitality at its very best. Paul and I would like to send God’s blessings on the entire Liddle family. They, on finding our abandoned pickup, had been searching for us for Tuesday afternoon, all of Wednesday and Thursday until they found us. Had they not found us – having no food and suffering from exposure, no water, dehydration setting in, extreme fatigue, suffering from alternating nights of cold and rain and days of heat, sun, rain and hail, we might not have survived. We could not have made it longer than Thursday afternoon when they found us. Hail and rain were coming down on us, and we were at the limit of our endurance.

Our first and greatest mistake was leaving the truck. We had neglected to make sure that we could find it again after negotiating several coulees, and that mistake nearly cost us our lives.

The Liddles are gentle people with dear hearts, and we feel that we owe them our lives. With people like this, I could not live any other place. Our prayers go out to the family with their current adversities.

Harry and Family, we are forever in your debt.

Andy Anderson

and Paul English