A 72-year-old southern Oregon man who survived five grueling days after getting stranded in his Jeep with his two dogs says he made a mistake by venturing out into the wilderness without making all of the proper preparations.

Greg Randolph said he hopes others can learn from his ordeal.

“When I go out on a desert trip any more, my neighbors are going to know where I’m going to be, what area,” Randolph said. “I’m going to take food. I’m going to take bunches of water. I’m going to be prepared. ... And I will have my medicines with me.”

“Don’t repeat what I did,” Randolph continued. “That’s what I want people to understand. That’s what I hope they get out of this little story.”

Randolph spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive this week from his Lakeview home, where he and his dogs are recovering after a backcountry cyclist from Portland on July 18 happened upon Randolph, collapsed and in the early stages of a diabetic coma on a rarely traveled dirt road.

Randolph’s story, first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, has made national and international headlines as a survival tale to be celebrated, with an improbable rescue from a stranger on two wheels.

Randolph said he is a retired technician for the Oregon Air National Guard, where he welded and made parts for jets. On Sundays after church, he likes to explore the remote high desert region of Lake County, situated above the Oregon-California border with a population 7,900.

It was 10 a.m. Sunday, July 14, when Randolph set out with Cruella, his Shih Tzu, and Buddy, a Yorkshire mix, to explore the Guano Creek Slough, he said. It was a two-hour drive from Randolph’s home, and maybe 40 miles from the nearest town.

Randolph stopped and filled up the tank of his 1988 Jeep Cherokee, bought a foot-long Subway sandwich and some ice to chill the 13 bottles of water he had with him. When he got to the slough, he maneuvered off road and up a dry creek bed.

“The driving was OK,” Randolph said. “I wasn’t even in four-wheel drive yet. It was sandy and flat, and the Jeep maneuvered pretty well through it.”

When the driving got rougher and the sand softer, he shifted into four-wheel drive.

“I came around this corner and all of a sudden ... I saw this rock in front of my Jeep,” Randolph said. “Before I could react, the tire went into a depression right in front of the rock.”

The Jeep wouldn’t budge.

9 Man, dogs rescued after getting stranded in Oregon canyon

"I had a shovel, but I didn’t have a jack. ... Then I realized I had left my medicine at home,” said Randolph, who has Type 1 diabetes. ”I didn’t have any other food except for the Subway sandwich.”

Cellphone coverage was nonexistent.

It was about 1 p.m., and the temperature soared into the 90s, he said. Over the course of hours, he tried digging out the tires or positioning rocks underneath to give them some traction, with no success.

“I just decided ‘There’s no way you’re going to get this out,’” Randolph said.

He folded down the back seat and unrolled some sleeping bags.

“Towards about 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock, I just decided to relax and take it easy,” Randolph said. “The puppies and I, we started to sleep on and off.”

In the middle of the night, he heard screaming, which he thought sounded like a cougar. But he felt secure as long as he and his dogs stayed in the Jeep.

Randolph said Monday and Tuesday came and went, with no one passing by. He realized he needed a change of plan.

“So Tuesday night, before we settled down for the night, I started talking to the puppies,” Randolph said. “I said: ‘Now you guys, I think we’re going to have to walk out tomorrow. It’s going to be tough because once the sun gets up, it gets really hot.’”

Wednesday at 6 a.m. he grabbed his handgun for protection from cougars, wolves and rattlesnakes. Then they started walking out the way they’d driven in.

By evening, they’d made it to the Shirk Ranch, an 1881 homestead that has long since been abandoned.

Greg Randolph had taken a nap in the Shirk Ranch bunkhouse before spending a night in the main ranch house as he hiked toward civilization. (Photo courtesy Tomas Quinones)Courtesy of Tomas Quinones

“At that time, I had one bottle of water left, because I was sharing the water with my puppies,” Randolph said. “I didn’t want anything to happen to them, either.”

He barricaded himself in a bedroom and lay down on some old mattresses, with no padding and only the box springs remaining.

"About 1 o’clock in the morning, the dogs started barking and wouldn’t stop,” Randolph said. “And I’m thinking there’s something outside and it’s going around the house, because ... the dogs kept moving ... around the room. I thought something was tracking us from outside.”

It was difficult to sleep knowing that.

By Thursday at dawn, Randolph was shaking uncontrollably from the desert cold. He was wearing jeans, but only a short-sleeved T-shirt on top. He downed the last drop of water and trekked toward Highway 140, his best chance at encountering a car.

Randolph was very weak, but he thinks his military service -- he said that includes two tours during the Vietnam War -- gave him the toughness he needed to soldier on.

Randolph said he also was delirious on his fourth day with no medication. At some point, he fired off three shots with his handgun, in an international SOS signal. No one came. But the loud noise had the effect of scaring off Buddy, who ran back in the direction of the stranded Jeep, Randolph said.

“After I did that, I walked some more,” he said. “I don’t know how far, but that’s when I passed out. And the next thing I know I feel this pushing on my shoulder.”

It was Tomas Quinones, the mountain bicyclist who was on Day 6 of a 7-day, 360-mile camping trip. It was sometime after 11 a.m., and Quinones had come around a bend in the remote dirt road and spotted what he thought was a dead cow.

Quinones already had seen three so far on his trip. But when Randolph twitched, Quinones realized he was approaching a person, not a bovine.

“I thought ‘This is not good,’” Quinones later recounted. Quinones detailed the encounter on his bike camping blog.

Randolph wasn’t able to comprehend how his fortune had just turned.

Quinones told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Randolph was rolling his eyes, grunting, incoherent, sunburned and badly dehydrated. Quinones said he gave Randolph and Cruella some water, then set up his tent and tried to get Randolph inside into the shade. But he couldn’t get Randolph to move.

Quinones, 42, used his Spot personal locator beacon to summon an ambulance and a Lake County Sheriff’s deputy. With the push of an “SOS” button, the device sends a signal to a satellite, which then notifies dispatchers that help is needed at specific GPS coordinates.

Tomas Quinones used his Spot satellite personal locator beacon to send a signal for help. (Photo courtesy of Tomas Quinones)

They waited maybe an hour, Quinones estimated, before the ambulance arrived. Randolph said he realized he was finally being rescued somewhere along that long, bumpy ride.

“When I got to Lakeview and I was in the ER, I thought I was at a Navajo hospital,” Randolph said. “That’s how far I was out.”

Doctors told Randolph his kidneys were failing and his liver was in bad shape, too, he said. That’s the first time he worried that he might die.

Deputy Buck Maganzini told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he worried Randolph might be the victim of a crime -- that someone had hurt him and then dumped him in the desert. The deputy tried to interview Randolph that first night, but his throat was too dry and he couldn’t talk. Randolph got a few words out the second day, then on the third day told the deputy the basics of what he’d been through.

That day, July 20, was the same day Oregon State Police used an airplane to locate Randolph’s Jeep and Buddy, who had managed to find his way back there. Police brought Buddy to a Lakeview animal hospital, where he joined Cruella in receiving medical care.

Maganzini estimated that Randolph walked 14 miles before collapsing. Randolph estimates it could have been twice that distance.

Randolph said his desert experience was enormously taxing, both physically and mentally. He still needs to take frequent naps, and his mind isn’t yet functioning at 100% yet.

He said he’s enormously grateful to his neighbors, friends and family. His ex-wife traveled down from Portland last weekend to clean his home and cook. One of his adult daughters ordered him a new cellphone, because he lost his somewhere on the hike out. Neighbors have checked in on him, reminded him of upcoming doctor’s appointments and picked up new medications.

Randolph said a Jeep aficionados’ club has offered to retrieve his SUV from its marooned location this weekend.

“I’ve lived in Lake County for 10 years, and I love it,” he said. “This community is really a care-about-everybody kind of community.”

His new cellphone arrived a few days ago, and now he said he has a lot of “thank yous” to make. High up on his list is Quinones.

“Thank God for Tomas,” Randolph said. “He saved my life.”

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

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