A TRAIL runner with a broken leg rubbed his knees raw after he dragged himself to safety for almost ten hours through tundra-like conditions before help arrived.
Joseph Oldendorf was 12 miles into a planned 20-mile run near Olympic National Park when he suddenly slipped on ice and broke his leg on a remote trail at around 5:45pm Friday.
With no cellphone service, the 26-year-old began crawling on his hands and knees through the shaky, snow-covered trail in Washington hoping to be rescued.
"I had to crawl on all fours and my knees – it's a rocky, snowy, dirty, wet trail – and after a while, my knees were just raw," he told KIRO.
"So I had the idea to put my shoes over them so I would at least have some traction and a little bit of protection, but they're still really messed up."
His broken leg was so badly injured that he needed to crawl facing chest down "for it not to be flopping out of alignment," he said.
Oldendorf crawled for nearly seven hours before he reached an area with reception to call for help at around 12:30am Saturday.
He continued to trudge through sub-zero temperatures for another three hours before rescuers found him on the ground close to 4:30am.
As a hypothermic Oldendorf lay on the freezing terrain trying to stay warm, the thought of his family kept him moving – he didn't want his final moments alive to be spent in the wilderness.
"I don't want my family to hear I died in the wilderness. I think it'd be unbearable," he told the news station.
Oldendorf was treated on site for exposure to cold and a broken ankle before a Coast Guard helicopter arrived at around 7am to airlift and shuttle the ailing runner to Harborview Medical Center.
Local search and rescue officials praised the young runner's "grit and determination" to save himself after becoming stranded in the rugged portion of the national park.
"Carrying a charged cell phone and displaying incredible grit and determination to self rescue likely prevented more serious injury in this case," Jefferson Search and Rescue said in a statement to the Daily News.
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