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Deerslayer
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Rescue workers found a missing elk hunter alive last Sunday after she went a week with little food, water or warm clothing in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains.
Mischelle Hileman, 39, was found about 9 miles northeast of Wallowa after being missing since October 27, said Matthew Marmor, Wallowa County’s emergency services coordinator.
A BlackHawk helicopter from the 1042nd Medical Company, the Oregon Army National Guard unit stationed in Salem, flew her to St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, where she remained in critical condition. A hospital spokeswoman says Hileman suffered from exposure and frostbite.
Hileman was wearing only a red fleece sweatshirt, pants, hiking boots and a baseball cap, but no coat. She had no way to make a fire during her long ordeal.
Marmor says one of the rescue workers, Bill Lehr, of Wallowa, was walking near the spot where Hileman was lying in a stand of old-growth timber, and called her name.
“She said, ‘Yeah,’” Marmor said. “She was conscious, in good spirits and good humor.”
Lehr says Hileman had slipped and fallen the day she was reported missing and was unable to get out of a canyon.
She was about 1 mile from where she’d planned to meet her father, Benny Hileman of Wallowa. She used all the ammunition in her hunting rifle trying to signal rescuers.
Lehr says when he found Hileman, she was breaking ice in a stream to get water.
Hileman told Lehr she survived by eating berries and moss, and had covered herself with fir and pine boughs to keep warm.
Mischelle Hileman, 39, was found about 9 miles northeast of Wallowa after being missing since October 27, said Matthew Marmor, Wallowa County’s emergency services coordinator.
A BlackHawk helicopter from the 1042nd Medical Company, the Oregon Army National Guard unit stationed in Salem, flew her to St. Alphonsus Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, where she remained in critical condition. A hospital spokeswoman says Hileman suffered from exposure and frostbite.
Hileman was wearing only a red fleece sweatshirt, pants, hiking boots and a baseball cap, but no coat. She had no way to make a fire during her long ordeal.
Marmor says one of the rescue workers, Bill Lehr, of Wallowa, was walking near the spot where Hileman was lying in a stand of old-growth timber, and called her name.
“She said, ‘Yeah,’” Marmor said. “She was conscious, in good spirits and good humor.”
Lehr says Hileman had slipped and fallen the day she was reported missing and was unable to get out of a canyon.
She was about 1 mile from where she’d planned to meet her father, Benny Hileman of Wallowa. She used all the ammunition in her hunting rifle trying to signal rescuers.
Lehr says when he found Hileman, she was breaking ice in a stream to get water.
Hileman told Lehr she survived by eating berries and moss, and had covered herself with fir and pine boughs to keep warm.