Lost in the woods for a week, a widow finds an epiphany
SEATTLE— On her 71st birthday, Sajean Geer pulled her Ford Explorer to the side of a dirt road, and ventured into the wilderness.
All she had with her was a pair of sunglasses, the clothes on her back, her cellphone, her car keys, an urn, and her dog, Yoda.
The urn held the ashes of Geer’s husband of 34 years, Jack, who died in December after a heart attack. For months, she had mourned his death “in a state of shock,” she said.
“I got through that, and I was ready to complete . . . that cycle of my life. I’ll honour it, I’ll cherish it, but I need to move on,” Geer said.
She’d promised to scatter his ashes at his two favourite places in the world: The Kona coast on the Big Island of Hawaii and near Obstruction Point, inside Olympic National Park. Focused on closing a chapter of life, “I ran out there,” she said. After she spread his ashes, she realized she’d lost her bearing. “I didn’t think I walked that far, but I could have, because I was emotional,” she said.
Hoping to catch sight of the road from a high point, she climbed a hill, but slipped and sent the urn tumbling below.
With dusk settling over the range, she was embarrassed to realize she was lost.
“All my outdoor experience has been hiking on trails with signs, and I hadn’t had experience in total wilderness like that. All I could see is trees. I couldn’t find anything to orient myself with,” she said.
As the light waned, she found a log to sleep beneath and curled up next to Yoda. It would be the first of six nights she spent in the wilderness alone. Geer spent the next day walking. “I did this to myself,” she remembers thinking. “I’m in a dire situation. I have a Hawaiian shirt, no jacket. I had no water bottle, no knife, nothing to start a fire.”
Still, she remained calm. An avid reader, Geer had become interested in foraging and survival. Years ago, she’d devoured books on those topics.
“I had four things I had to do to survive: (Find) water, not get injured seriously . . . find shelter, and I had to be visible to be rescued,” she said. A positive attitude, she remembered, was key. “You have to have something in your head, to keep you motivated and alive.” She reflected on friends, family and her life. “The most important thing is our relationships and love. Love people. Love your life . . . take responsibility and don’t be a victim.”
By the third day, Geer decided to hunker down and wait for rescue. She hadn’t told anyone of her plans, and knew it could take days, if not weeks, for help to arrive.
She chose to fashion a shelter near a creek that sliced through a steep, narrow valley. Where two logs converged, Geer built walls and a ceiling with tree branches, and used moss and bark to plug holes in the wall.
At night, she’d snuggle with Yoda, a Chihuahua mix. Temperatures at night dropped under 10 C. For the first three days, she said, hunger hardly bothered her. But by day four, she began to crave cherries, so fresh this time of year in the Northwest. Geer had to settle for scavenged currants and young pine needles. An ant bit her, which sparked an idea. “I go, ‘Well, I’ve got a bigger mouth than you,’ so I ate it.” Before she had set out, Geer’s brother, Jack Eng, wished her a happy birthday. He was the last person she talked with that week.
He became worried when he got a phone call from a friend of Geer’s in Hawaii who said she hadn’t answered messages. That was out of character.
Eng, who lives in Seattle, asked police to check on her. They found no trace of her at her Port Angeles home, but also found no sign anything was wrong. Two days later, it became official: Geer was missing. Finally, he received some news. A National Park ranger on patrol had noticed her vehicle parked on the shoulder of Obstruction Point Road. The park service began an aerial search.
Geer had heard helicopters and planes overhead several times that week, but this was different — it was circling near her.
“I went and found a spot that was sunny” and “jumped on a log and started waving at them,” she said. Rescuers tossed Geer a notebook with a note to stay put. A few minutes later, a rescuer appeared. “I jumped up and hugged him, I was so happy,” she said. She was dehydrated, scraped, bruised and “chewed up” by mosquitoes, but otherwise fine. She was released that evening. That night, she ate some cherries and recounted her adventure for her brother and his family.
She reflected on her predicament, and said she learned something about herself in the ordeal, too.
“When you’re by yourself up in the wilderness with nobody to talk to except your dog, you learn a lot about yourself,” she said. “I forced myself to look at . . . decisions I made that put me in my situation. I made a lot of mistakes.
“I was really encouraged by myself. I didn’t panic. I was calm. I was glad I had the knowledge to figure out what to do,” she said. “I was grateful for everything in my life — my friends, my family.” In the woods, she felt her late husband’s presence. “It’s time to let go and let your own light shine, and stand up,” she realized. “This situation forced me. I realized I had to be on my own and move on to my life.”