An Indiana man survived three days in his SUV that was stuck in deep snow in the Rio Grande National Forest before he managed to make his way to a road Sunday morning and get help.
Jason Pede stayed in his Lincoln Navigator surviving on soft drinks and melted snow until his gasoline ran out.
Then, he left the safety of his SUV, fearing a night in the cold.
He made it through the melting snow to a more-traveled road seven miles away, where passersby helped him.
The ordeal started Thursday morning, when Pede found himself with his new pal, an Australian Shepherd rescued from a puppy mill, on a road high in the Rio Grande Forest as he tried to take a short cut to Aspen.
A local in Saguache had told him that with his SUV he could save more than a hundred miles plowing through the snow on a county road.
But soon the snow was above the hood of the Navigator. Pede was literally plowing the snow with the vehicle until he could go no further.
When he tried to back out and back down the road, the Navigator ran off the road and he and the dog were stranded.
“This poor dog is already mentally distraught given his life experiences. … I felt so bad. He’s had a heck of a life,” said Pede, a native of Chesterton Ind., about the dog.
Pede, 31, has made his living escorting big loads across the nation’s highways in recent years. He is the guy in the car in front of oversized loads with flashing lights warning other motorists about what’s coming.
But that business dried up during the recession. Now he does contract business where he uses his Lincoln Navigator to deliver goods – in this case the Australian Shepherd – across the country. A woman in Pueblo had adopted the Australian Shepherd from a rescue group in California.
Pede was going to Pueblo via Aspen where he was to pick up some cats for delivery in Davenport, Iowa, before heading to Pueblo.
He never made it to Aspen.
Pede says he watches television survival shows. The one lesson he has learned is to stay with vehicle. So from Thursday morning until Sunday morning – when the last of his gasoline to heat the Navigator gave out – he and the dog stayed in the vehicle.
They drank a couple of cans of soft drink, a bottle of water his kids left in the car and snow that he melted with a fire made from eight chairs that originally were to be delivered to a lady in Topeka, Ks.
When the gasoline gave out, Pede said he knew he had to try to walk out. The weather wasn’t bad – the sun was out. He thought he’d freeze to death with temperatures dipping to 6 at night if he stayed in a non-heated vehicle.
He started walking. Much to his surprise, as he headed down the mountain, he found that a lot of the heavy snow had melted in the days he had been in the national forest. Walking wasn’t that difficult, although the altitude got him and he’d have to rest.
Seven miles down the road, he came across another road and there he saw a convoy of five vehicles. He waved his flashlight at them and collapsed.
“My body shut down on me. It has never done that before. I dropped flat on my ass,” said Pede.
He had on four pairs of pants, four sweaters, three pair of socks and blankets. He said he was sweating profusely.
All five cars stopped, several of them containing snowboarders from Amarillo, Texas.
They got him to Monte Vista, where he told the sheriff’s department they had to get back up the mountain and rescue the dog.
“I was most concerned about that dog,” said Pede. “I told them that poor thing was going to die.”
Late today, Pede was wrapping up his journey to Pueblo with the dog, who he said was traumatized by the entire episode. But he said the dog is doing well after spending a night at a veterinarian in Monte Vista – a vet recommended by the Colorado State Patrol.
Back in Indiana, Pede’s wife, Amanda, is thankful as are the couple’s three children – Alexis, 11; Roslyn, 6, and Tegan, 4.
“He is a good man and a good dad. I couldn’t imagine a day without him,” said Amanda Pede.
As far as Jason Pede, “you are darn right I feel lucky to be alive. But it won’t sink in until I hold my wife.”
Although he said he is not an overly religious guy, he said when he walked down the thawing mountain road, “I didn’t walk out on my own.”
Since he walked out, he said it has snowed 17 inches on the road.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
