A few weeks ago I went out with a search and rescue team looking for a 60-year-old-man missing in the sand dunes. He was last heard from Feb. 2 when he told family that he was going to the beach. Four days later a sheriff deputy found his abandoned car near an over-look close to trails leading to the beach, which traverse miles of sand dunes. That many cold nights without food or insulin doesn’t produce favorable odds of survival.
Coos County Search and Rescue volunteers, from left, Dave Haueter, Jeanette Sinclair and Jacob Skretting check to confirm a cigarette butt is the same brand that Wyman Wayne Weathersby smokes, Feb. 9, 2012.
A U.S. Coast Guard Helicopter and U.S. Forest Service agents searched the area. A team mounted on horseback, K9 handlers and a “ground and pound” crew searched for three days. They are a volunteer force. It took some convincing, but eventually the sheriff chain of command allowed me to embed with the “ground and pounders.” The obvious locations were covered with the K9 unit. We were charged with combing the bush in between trails. Save a few cigarette butts and a book of matches, there was no sign of Weathersby.
When the search slowed down, and on the day I wasn’t there, two bodies did show up in the area. One was an elderly person who died of natural causes while walking his dog. The other was the body of a woman who stole a car, eluded police along a windy road on the east side of Coos Bay, crashed, then escaped into the bay. Somehow police didn’t notice her escape — they figured she retreated into the brush somewhere. Swimming in the bay with regular clothes in February is not a good idea. Her body was found naked a few miles from where she crashed the car, coincidentally near the search and rescue staging area. The cause of death is unknown at this point, but my guess is hypothermia and then drowning.
The sheriff’s office called off the search after three days. Speculators think bear or cougar may have gotten to him. The waves were huge that week. If he did make it to the beach, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got washed out to sea. But amid this tragedy, I am once again amazed at the community effort to help a single soul find its way back home.
