VANCOUVER – Diehard outdoor enthusiasts Chad Herman, his wife Whitnie, and her father Troy Sill, were trudging through washed-out roads in northeast Nevada’s high desert scavenging for elk antlers last Friday when they came upon an unexpected sight: a Chevy Astro minivan parked off the two-track road in the rock-rutted, brush-covered landscape.
As they got closer, a woman in jeans and plaid shirt popped her head out of the van’s sliding doors.
"You OK?" Sill gestured by putting his thumb and index finger together in a circle.
"No," the woman shook her head, barely able to get her words out. "I’m not OK."
That chance encounter – details of which were shared for the first time Monday with Postmedia News – marked the beginning of the end of Penticton resident Rita Chretien’s harrowing seven-week ordeal alone in middle-of-nowhere ranch country, a case that has drawn headlines and an outpouring of support from around the world.
"She’s an amazing woman, I’ll say that," Sill, 48, said Monday back at his job as a heavy-equipment operator at Le Garza Exploration. "She must be a God-fearing woman. She did everything right."
As the trio got off their all-terrain vehicles, the gravity of the situation soon became apparent. Sheets of paper were pressed up against the windshield. One said "STUCK." Another said "PLEASE HELP." Bright-coloured blankets hung over the window sills, presumably to attract attention to passersby.
"Thank God," the woman inside said with a gush of emotion and tears. "I’m going to live."
In a whispered and rambling fashion, Chretien, 56, recounted her story: How she and her husband, Albert, 59, had been on their way to a trade show in Las Vegas. How they attempted a shortcut but took some wrong turns and then ended up stuck in the mud on March 19. How they were just a pair of "dumb ol’ Canadians." How she wasn’t sure she would’ve made it through the weekend.
Chretien said she was worried about her husband, who had left on March 22 to go find help – GPS device in hand – but never returned.
But "he’s a fighter," she said over and over again. "He’s a fighter."
Chretien said she had passed the time by reading and re-reading books and writing in her diary and got by on a bit of trail mix and candy.
Each day, she would walk to a nearby stream to get water. But in recent days, she didn’t have the strength, so she had to settle for water from nearby puddles, which didn’t taste so good.
As the trio offered her some bottled water, a bag of Doritos chips and some beef jerky, they huddled together to figure out how the heck they were going to get her out of there.
Whitnie Herman, 26, a logistics analyst at Newmont Mining, said she tried calling 911 on her cellphone but couldn’t get through.
They considered pulling the van out with their ATVs, but Chretien told them she had sapped the van’s battery and there was no gas in the tank.
Maybe they could drive her out on their ATVs, they thought. But they quickly dropped that idea given her weak condition and the rough terrain.
Then Chad Herman, 31, an electrical and instrumentation supervisor at Barrick Goldstrike Mines, remembered that there was someone living on a ranch about nine miles away near the abandoned mining town of Rowland.
He asked Chretien if she’d be OK by herself for about an hour while they fetched for help. She said yes.
When the trio got to the ranch, they scaled the locked gates and were prepared to break down the door if they had to.
"We’ve got to get to a phone, no matter what," Chad Herman said.
Fortunately, the ranch owner was home.
They called 911 and arranged to meet a sheriff’s helicopter at a bridge over Bruneau River. From there, they would lead the chopper through the canyons to Chretien.
When they returned, they were shocked by what they saw.
Chretien – adrenalin clearly pulsing through her body – had taken down the blankets, ripped down the pieces of paper from the windshield, had her purse slung over her shoulder and suitcases packed and ready to go.
She even appeared to have fixed up her hair.
"She was smiling, she was happy," Chad Herman recalled.
As paramedics attended to her, Chretien handed the family their bag of Doritos chips – neatly rolled up and clipped at the top.
Whitnie Herman couldn’t believe it.
"I wish you the best," she said, leaning in to give Chretien a hug.
Chretien asked for the family’s contact information, but Whitnie Herman said not to worry. "Just take care of yourself."
On Monday, doctors at St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho, said Chretien’s health was continuing to improve. She had moved from a liquid diet to eating yogurt, other dairy products and rice, and was continuing with physical therapy.
Her spirits were described as "extremely high."
Meanwhile, a 20-person search team resumed their hunt for Albert Chretien, navigating the rugged terrain on horseback and four-wheelers and, thanks to clearing weather, utilizing a helicopter for the first time.
At a news conference on Sunday, Chretien’s children said they were praying for a second miracle.
Out of the spotlight and back at their regular jobs, a trio of elk antler-hunting adventure-seekers were praying for the same.
dquan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/dougquan
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