Hiker gets lost in Oregon overnight, rescuers say. A smartphone app helped save him
A smartphone app helped in the search for an Oregon hiker who got lost on a trail overnight, rescuers said.
The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office got a call about “an overdue hiker” just before 9 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 10, the Deschutes County Search and Rescue Foundation said in a Tuesday, Oct. 11, Facebook post.
Using a “find my phone application,” the person who called to report the missing hiker figured out the 55-year-old Bend man parked his car at the Tumalo Falls Trailhead in Deschutes National Forest, the sheriff’s office said.
“Deputies responded to the area and checked some trails around Tumalo Falls,” the post said.
During their search for the missing hiker “throughout the night and into the following day,” rescuers trekked nearby trails showing other hikers a photo of the man and asking if they had seen him, the post said.
On Tuesday at around 11:10 a.m., a hiker called to say they had found the man “walking down a trail towards (the) Tumalo Falls Parking area,” rescuers said.
Searchers spoke with the hiker who said he had “lost his way as it got dark, so he sheltered in place overnight and then began walking out the following morning,” the post said.
The man was taken back to the parking lot, the sheriff’s office said.
Deschutes National Forest is about 130 miles east of Eugene.
This story was originally published October 12, 2022 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Hiker gets lost in Oregon overnight, rescuers say. A smartphone app helped save him."
