It took a Band-Aid, battery and bunch of ingenuity to rescue an Oldsmar couple from a mountain pass.
By JENNIFER FARRELL
Published September 13, 2003
[Photo by Jane and Daryl Seaton]
The Seatons spent two days stuck in this Land Rover before Daryl Seaton was able to jury-rig his cell phone and call for help.
Survivor met MacGyver this week on the face of a frigid peak high in the Rocky Mountains.
Snowbound with his wife in a convertible Land Rover, with temperatures falling and wind gusts climbing to 60 miles an hour, Daryl Seaton knew the only chance for escape was the cell phone in his hand.
But after 48 hours of searching for service during a blizzard on a remote mountain pass in Colorado, the phone's battery was dead.
That's when Daryl hit upon the plan that almost certainly saved his life Thursday and that of his wife, Jane. Combining ingenuity with determination, the Pinellas hotel operator tried to hotwire the dead phone to the ignition on the Land Rover. When that didn't work, he thought of one more possibility:
The camera bag in the back of the SUV.
In a last-ditch try to recharge the phone, Daryl and Jane tore apart their luggage to find its charger, buried deep in one of their bags. Then Daryl stripped the skinny wire with a utility knife, taping the loose ends to a tiny camera battery with a Band-Aid.
Within seconds, the phone chirped to life.
"Oh my God," Daryl whispered. "It's working."
* * *
The Seatons, who live in Oldsmar, run Sea-Wake Resorts, which operates hotels in Clearwater Beach, Crystal River and Melbourne. The couple, who will celebrate their 23rd wedding anniversary in November, had planned a two-day trek through the mountains during a visit to a vacation home outside Aspen owned by Daryl's parents.
Reached by telephone Friday at the home in Glenwood Springs, the couple took turns recounting their adventure, which ended Thursday afternoon when a helicopter plucked them from the side of a 13,110-foot snow-covered peak.
Fears about their close brush with death, unspoken during the long hours on the mountain, surfaced Friday. As snow drifts blanketed the SUV and wind battered its vinyl convertible top, they stuffed underwear in gaps to plug the drafts and turned off the engine to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
They rationed water and tried to stay warm, huddling under extra blankets packed for emergencies. They weren't hungry, but forced themselves to nibble leftovers from Tuesday's fried chicken picnic lunch. For snacks, they shared two apples, bits of beef jerky and Wasa bread.
Another night and they might not have survived, said Daryl, 43. Neither dared talk much about the danger during the long ordeal.
"But we both knew it," he said.
* * *
The day before they were discovered, a helicopter search crew came within within 500 feet of the pair, rescuers later told the Seatons. But the whiteout left their red SUV all but invisible.
Inside the Land Rover, the couple heard nothing but the wind's deafening roar.
"It was really kind of strange," said Jane, (pronounced YAY-na), 42. "You just sit there and hope for the best."
Late summer and early fall are particularly treacherous in the mountains, said Becky Klenk, spokeswoman for the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, Colo.
Weather conditions can turn on a dime, leaving even the most experienced travelers vulnerable.
A foot of snow fell between Tuesday and Wednesday, Klenk said, and high winds made low temperatures feel even colder.
"If you're going to be venturing into the high country, hopefully you have some survival skills," she said. "The mountains can be, well, deadly."
The Seatons reached the summit on Imogene Pass at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, when they noticed a few sprinkles, followed by snow flurries. They stopped for a few pictures of the spectacular view, then headed back down the mountain.
Within minutes, the blizzard overwhelmed them. They made it about 500 feet before the front of the SUV disappeared into white.
At first, the couple worried about the wind blowing them over the side of a cliff. So Daryl found rocks and wedged them under the tires. Then he found some rope in the back of the Land Rover and tied the rear bumper to a boulder.
Inside, Jane rearranged the luggage, fashioning a bed to lie on. She gathered extra wool socks, coats and shoes and the couple huddled in the back, agreeing not to cry.
Then they waited.
* * *
The Seatons had explained their plans to Daryl's parents before leaving Monday. By dinnertime Tuesday, they knew they would be missed.
But as Wednesday morning slipped into afternoon, the couple started to worry.
At the high altitude, the air was thin and they had trouble breathing. The slightest exertion left them breathless.
By Thursday morning, the temperature had slipped to 18 degrees and snow squalls reduced visibility to zero. "We were kind of stuck in there," said Daryl.
As the morning wore on, the clouds lifted. Daryl saw his chance. He waited half an hour for his phone to charge, then clamored outside to try for a cell signal. The 500-foot journey to the summit took him 45 minutes and left him badly winded, but not so much that he couldn't speak.
Back in the Land Rover, Jane could hear her husband shouting into the phone, "Dad, it's me!"
Two hours later, the helicopter arrived. The couple climbed in, leaving the Land Rover on the frozen peak, where it will likely stay until spring.
By Friday, friends and family had already nicknamed Daryl, "MacGyver," for the 1980s television hero who survived on his wits and an uncanny ability to craft things like bombs out of odds and ends. But Daryl remained low-key about the experience. "It's funny what you do when you have to," he said. "I think you learn what you really can do."
Daryl was treated for "frostnip," a condition just shy of frostbite, and Jane suffered exhaustion. They had no other serious injuries.
In Clearwater, the Seatons' friends weren't surprised by Daryl's cunning. "This guy's like that," said Rick Gaston, owner of SWAT Exterminating Co. "You just got to know him. He thinks on his feet faster than anybody I've ever met in my life."
The couple say they never fought throughout the ordeal.
"The whole time we were there, I knew that Daryl would get us out of it," Jane said. "I just knew he would come through. That's just how he is. I guess I just trust him."
