Missing Wife Found Alive after 7 1/2 Hours - Prayers & Cell Phone Credited

I just have to share this story with my friends here at REW. Our Story is in the Oregonian Newspaper in Portland today.

My wife Debi started a new job as Casino Cage Cashier on Thursday April 5th, 2007 at the Three Rivers Casino here in Florence on the Rugged Oregon Coast, working a late swing shift. On her second night Friday the 6th, she was supposed to get off work at 1:30 am Saturday morning, at 1:15 am I received a call from her Cage Supervisor wanting to know if my wife had made it home safely, I asked when she had left and he said about 20 minutes earlier and that she was disoriented and not feeling well. I waited 10 more minutes and decided she should have been home by then so I drove to the Casino and back, she still wasn't home.

I had talked to her at 11 pm and she was feeling real bad, she said she didn't think she was doing her job very well, that she was having a hard time focusing. She is a Type 1 Insulin Dependant Diabetic, her blood sugar had been off all day. When her blood sugar fluctuates a lot like it was that day she doesn't think clearly.

By then it was 2:00 am and I knew something was seriously wrong. I know my wife and she wouldn't do anything but come straight home. So I called the Casino Security Supervisor and told him I need to know all the details. So he told me they let her go home a little early because she couldn't think clear enough to close out her cash drawer. One of the girls took her out back to the break area, she told Debi that she should call me and asked her if there was anything she could do to help her. Debi told her she would like a mint, when her co-worker returned Debi was gone. They looked around and couldn't find her and that is when the Cage Supervisor called me.

At that point I didn't know if she had been kidnapped from the parking lot or what had happened but if you imagine yourself in my shoes, I was scared but I knew what I had to do. I told the Security Supervisor that I need to know exactly what happened, I told him they need to check their parking lot surveillance tapes, I need to know if she was kidnapped or if she left on her own. He said he would check those tapes right away and get back with me.

My next step was to contact all the law enforcement agencies, as far as I was concerned this was a possible abduction. I notified the Florence City Police, Lane County Sheriff and Oregon State Troopers. I asked the state to put out an APB for outlying Counties and they agreed to put out an APB for the entire Oregon Coast to be on the look out for her truck. After making all the calls I could, I returned to the Casino to meet with Security. Sgt. Freeburg told me the tapes showed Debi walked to her truck at 12:50 am, sat in it for 5 minutes and pulled out of the parking lot at 12:55 am.

I was extremely relieved to know that she was not abducted. But now what, the drive from the casino to our home is about 5 miles.The casino is on the south side of town east of Hwy 101 about a half mile. She should have come back to Hwy 101, drove North through town and we live about 3 miles North of Florence at Sutton Lake. You can imagine my state of mind, I had been calling her cell phone repeatedly and no answer, why isn't she answering her phone? My wife and I are very close and I knew without a doubt that she would come straight home if she could. As I left the casino I was praying a lot.

I went home and notified all the law enforcement agencies that it was not an abduction, that she is diabetic and the condition she was in, I was afraid she may have went into a diabetic coma or was wondering around lost in a near comatose state. I asked the Oregon State Troopers to contact Verizon Wireless, our cell phone provider to see if they could triangulate her cell phone to determine her location. They were hesitant, she has been missing for about 2 hours. I know what they were thinking.. How many men call the police to help them locate a cheating wife or girlfriend by telling the police some story, so I had to convince them otherwise. I stressed the fact that I am concerned she is in a diabetic coma and she has to be found immediately. I insisted they contact Verizon and try to locate her.

They finally agreed, it took about ten minutes and they called me back. Verizon said she had not used her phone all day but that there had been a lot of calls to it. Well I knew all those calls were me trying to contact her. Verizon said to trace her location she had to use her phone.

I drove all around town looking in parking lots thinking maybe she had to pull over and passed out. By 4 am I was convinced she was not in town, she wasn't answering her phone, so she must have been so disoriented that she got lost and headed out of town the wrong way and possibly wrecked her truck. This is rugged forest country with rivers and lakes near the roads, if you go very far out of town you loose cell phone service and she could have gone any number of directions. There are logging roads everywhere, little roads leading to homes in about every direction.

Even though the police had an APB out on her truck, I knew they didn't have the manpower to find her. I had to do something. What lengths would you go to trying to find your loved one? I knew I had to go out of town looking which meant I would loose phone service on my cell. I got my parents up and had my mom take calls from my home phone in case Debi called or the police called. My dad and I headed in different directions out of town, hoping to find her parked on the side of the road and looking for places she could have run off the road and checking those areas. In this country you could run off the road and not be found for a long time because of the thick forest and brush.

At 5 am my mom started calling friends to help in the search. At 6 am she called church members to start prayers. We felt Debi had to be unconscious to be gone for 5 hours. We were all praying for God to help us find her, for God to wake Debi up and have her call me. My mom had the local radio station broadcasting a diabetic emergency and for everyone to be on the lookout for Debi's truck with a description and license number.

I got back to town and in phone range about 6:30 am and started calling Debi's cell phone again and again, between calls from the City Police, Lane County Sheriff, Oregon State Police and the Three Rivers Casino all wanting to know if we had found her yet.

The call finally came at 7:38 am, my wife called me. She was crying but she sounded good. She had been unconscious for six and a half hours and was just coming to. My phone calls and I believe all the prayers brought her back to a conscious state, but she was very confused. She said honey I need help, I'm stuck in an elevator. I said what do you mean you're stuck in an elevator. She responded in a hesitant tone, I don't know somehow I fell in an elevator and I need help I can't get out. I said honey did you roll the truck. Moments passed as she thought about that, still just coming around from being unconscious for so long she finally said, I think so. I asked her what she could see and she said bushes and trees.

As we continued to talk I was heading down the street to my office where I work as a Florence Oregon Real Estate Broker, I knew her phone battery was very low and I had to get the State to have Verizon triangulate her position before her phone battery died. I unlocked the office and ran to a phone, I didn't even take the time to shut off the alarm, which was soon sounding alarm. I got the state on the phone, kept my wife talking and within 10 minutes they knew within about 3 miles where she was. There are numerous roads in that area and I had asked my wife if she knew where she was. She didn't but she said she could hear cars. I had her count how many she could hear and she said 5 to 10 in a minute or two. With the GPS reading the State Troopers had and that many cars going by we knew she was just south of Florence on Coastal Hwy 101. At 8:38 am Oregon State Troopers found where she had left the road.

We now believe she was unconscious when she drifted across the road and rolled about 75 feet down the embankment until she was stopped by a large fir tree. The truck stopped partially on its side yet nearly over which left my wife on her side but also somewhat hanging upside down by her seat belt. She had been there for seven and a half hours. She is in as good of condition as you can be after rolling down a 75' embankment and hanging by a seatbelt for that long. She was taken to the hospital and released yesterday afternoon with no broken bones, only bruises, very sore ribs and a few minor cuts. One Trooper said we should buy a lottery ticket because this was definitely our lucky day. Not many people live from a wreck like that. If she had left the road just a little sooner or later she would have hit large trees head on. Even though she rolled down the cliff the location where she left the road had slowed her enough that when she did start rolling and hit a tree it kept her from rolling another 75 to 100 feet down the hill.

People that go into Diabetic comas need immediate medical attention and without it they often die.

It was by Gods Grace and all the prayers of my parents, friends and church members that I still have my wife.

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