Whitehorse man survives 3 weeks stranded in backcountry
Last Updated: Wednesday, September 3, 2008 | 4:18 PM CT
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- Dave White of CBC Radio's The Afternoon Show speaks with Dave Layzell about his ordeal (Runs: 9:50)
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A Whitehorse man said he's lucky to be alive after surviving three weeks stranded in the bush in central Yukon.
Dave Layzell was rescued on Aug. 29, following an unscheduled 20-day campout that prompted his family to report the 67-year-old man missing to Whitehorse RCMP earlier last week.
Speaking to CBC News from his home Wednesday, Layzell said he left the city on Aug. 9 to camp out for a couple of days near Clear Creek Road and take photographs of an old gold dredge there.
'The young man came up to me, and he said, 'You're Dave, and we've been looking for you.' I said, 'I'm Dave, and I'm glad you found me, and you're 25 minutes late.''— Dave Layzell
But he and his golden Labrador retriever, Brandy, became stranded in the woods when his truck got stuck in a muddy road in the vicinity.
"I know something about the bush," Layzell said. "I have, I think, a good share of common sense. And so I made a camp as close as I could to my truck, and I sat there and waited."
Layzell had with him a tent, a sleeping bag, a camp stove and three or four days worth of food, but the food eventually ran out.
"We stretched our food for as long as we could, and after about six, seven days, we were out of food," he said.
"We had a large tank of water with us, and we stretched it for … a little over 14, 16 days before we ran out of water. After that, we were drawing water from the creek and boiling it and doing by with that."
By Day 21, Layzell said he was resigning himself to another night without food when he heard a sound he had been hoping to hear all along.
"I was just laying there saying, 'What's next, Lord?' How much else do I have to go through?'" he recalled. "And I heard the sound of the helicopter starting to approach at that point, and I pulled on my boots and I got out of the tent and I saw that red and white bird circling that little valley."
"[After the helicopter landed], the young man came up to me and he said, 'You're Dave, and we've been looking for you.' I said, 'I'm Dave and I'm glad you found me, and you're 25 minutes late,'" Layzell said with a laugh.
Layzell said he suffered from dehydration and dangerously low blood pressure, but he is recovering quickly from his ordeal.
"If you keep your sense and you keep a positive attitude, you can do OK," he said.
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