Feb 26, 2010

A Stroll Through the Wilderness

You might have remembered that a few months ago, someone at a mental hospital here in Washington State thought it would be a great idea to take a few of the in-custody insane murderers out on a field trip to the County Fair. I know, I know, what a great idea, right? Especially since one of these killers was not taking his medication, and had recently reported that voices were telling him to kill a child. Well, no one thought it odd when he stuffed all of his clothing into a backpack for a 4-hour outing. After wandering the fair for awhile, the nanny lost track of said insane killer, then decided to call his boss, who told him NOT to report it to the police, because the insane murderer may have just gotten lost, and may show up. Three hours later, they finally decided to call local police. Fast forward a couple of days: the Yakima SWAT Team gets a call that this killer was last seen hitchhiking to the wilderness of south central Washington State, about 70 miles from Yakima.

A team of 8 of us, along with ORV quads, penetrate into the wilderness in an attempt to track this guy before he hurts someone.

Here is the typical rough terrain we walked through for the next 8 hours.













This is Officer "Hammie," he is eating the only food we brought with us, a pack of cheeze crackers.



It seemed as though crazed killers were not the only threat in the wilderness:


That's right... it's bear poop. I looked carefully at the "Scat", however did not locate any undigested murderers, just wild rose berries... I guess we keep looking.



Second danger... rattlesnakes. I stopped Sgt. Chad from killing this one, not it's fault we were tramping all over it's mouse-hunting grounds.

Being the most senior guy entitiled me to grab the shotgun as soon as we spotted all the "bear sign."


Well we walked and walked, not finding the guy. He had doubled back and walked out to the road and was arrested by roadblock units. But here we are, stuck about 5 miles into the wilderness when we are notified that the guy gave up. Our only communication at the time (not having a SAT phone) was a radio relay with a Washington State Patrol airplane; and as soon as the guy was found, he was gone, leaving us with no communications.


Well, we didn't see anything other than wildlife, The guy was caught and nobody broke an ankle. I suppose that's a succesfull mission.