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A thump on the car roused Debra Jean Smith from her restless sleep early Tuesday morning.
Huddled under someone else’s T-shirt and jacket for warmth inside the car, lodged in a snow drift on Johnnie Springs Road near Tiller, Smith wasn’t sure where the noise came from.
Then she heard two more thumps.
“It sounded like him tapping on the car with his cane,” she said of her companion, Tri City’s Kenneth Maurice Walton, “like him saying, ‘Wake up and try again.’”
By then, after two frigid nights alone, Smith felt in her heart that Walton’s attempt to hike out of the area for help had ended tragically. Smith took the thumps she heard as a sign that she should try moving the car again.
She started up the car and put it in reverse. She felt the tires grab the earth. She’d been turning the car on every couple of hours to keep warm. Perhaps the snow had melted away beneath, she believes.
She backed the car out, and carefully turned around, laying on the horn all the way down the mountain, hoping maybe Walton was still alive, maybe he would hear. The man had left hours after the pair got stuck Sunday afternoon while heading back to Tri City after eating breakfast in Canyonville that morning.
“I was terrified I was going to find him in the road,” Smith, 46, said in a telephone interview Friday from her home in Springfield.
A few miles later, Smith came to a home where she stopped for help. Smith reported Walton missing to authorities, while the homeowner started up a search. Douglas County Sheriff’s Office personnel, search and rescue crews and volunteers joined in.
That evening, Walton’s body was found some 50 yards off the road, one to two miles from where the car had been stranded.
An autopsy Thursday revealed Walton, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, had died of exposure and hypothermia, the Sheriff’s Office reported Friday.
A memorial service for the Douglas County native has been scheduled for 1 p.m. Monday at the Church of the Nazarene in Myrtle Creek.
Smith plans to attend. She and Walton had started seeing each other recently, and were getting closer, she said, her voice heavy with emotion.
“He was a very special person.”
Smith said that Sunday, after a couple hours of trying to get the car out of the snow, lodging branches and ferns under the tires for traction, Walton had decided he needed to go. After all, nobody knew where they were.
Smith said she didn’t want Walton to go alone, but she had twisted her ankle and didn’t think she could walk that far.
“He probably wouldn’t have let me (go) anyway,” she said. “He was that kind of person.”
As darkness fell that first night, she began to worry. She nibbled on the breakfast the pair had brought from the restaurant, taking only two bites at a time to ration off her leftover hash browns and omelet, and Walton’s leftover sausage patty and toast.
Smith has heard the tragic tales of those who get stuck in the wilderness with no supplies, no plan.
She said she’ll never again head into the woods without extra water, blankets, a flashlight and other supplies, and without telling someone where she’s going. She hopes others will learn from her experience, too.
“I don’t know how much I can ever stress that to people now,” she said.
Huddled under someone else’s T-shirt and jacket for warmth inside the car, lodged in a snow drift on Johnnie Springs Road near Tiller, Smith wasn’t sure where the noise came from.
Then she heard two more thumps.
“It sounded like him tapping on the car with his cane,” she said of her companion, Tri City’s Kenneth Maurice Walton, “like him saying, ‘Wake up and try again.’”
By then, after two frigid nights alone, Smith felt in her heart that Walton’s attempt to hike out of the area for help had ended tragically. Smith took the thumps she heard as a sign that she should try moving the car again.
She started up the car and put it in reverse. She felt the tires grab the earth. She’d been turning the car on every couple of hours to keep warm. Perhaps the snow had melted away beneath, she believes.
She backed the car out, and carefully turned around, laying on the horn all the way down the mountain, hoping maybe Walton was still alive, maybe he would hear. The man had left hours after the pair got stuck Sunday afternoon while heading back to Tri City after eating breakfast in Canyonville that morning.
“I was terrified I was going to find him in the road,” Smith, 46, said in a telephone interview Friday from her home in Springfield.
A few miles later, Smith came to a home where she stopped for help. Smith reported Walton missing to authorities, while the homeowner started up a search. Douglas County Sheriff’s Office personnel, search and rescue crews and volunteers joined in.
That evening, Walton’s body was found some 50 yards off the road, one to two miles from where the car had been stranded.
An autopsy Thursday revealed Walton, who suffered from muscular dystrophy, had died of exposure and hypothermia, the Sheriff’s Office reported Friday.
A memorial service for the Douglas County native has been scheduled for 1 p.m. Monday at the Church of the Nazarene in Myrtle Creek.
Smith plans to attend. She and Walton had started seeing each other recently, and were getting closer, she said, her voice heavy with emotion.
“He was a very special person.”
Smith said that Sunday, after a couple hours of trying to get the car out of the snow, lodging branches and ferns under the tires for traction, Walton had decided he needed to go. After all, nobody knew where they were.
Smith said she didn’t want Walton to go alone, but she had twisted her ankle and didn’t think she could walk that far.
“He probably wouldn’t have let me (go) anyway,” she said. “He was that kind of person.”
As darkness fell that first night, she began to worry. She nibbled on the breakfast the pair had brought from the restaurant, taking only two bites at a time to ration off her leftover hash browns and omelet, and Walton’s leftover sausage patty and toast.
Smith has heard the tragic tales of those who get stuck in the wilderness with no supplies, no plan.
She said she’ll never again head into the woods without extra water, blankets, a flashlight and other supplies, and without telling someone where she’s going. She hopes others will learn from her experience, too.
“I don’t know how much I can ever stress that to people now,” she said.
