Local hunter rescued in the Great Sandhills

In mid-November, two sons joined their dad for a hunting expedition in the Great Sandhills near Sceptre, Sask. It started as an ordinary day, but circumstances changed quickly for Andy Ortman from Kindersley and his sons.

“I picked up a deer trail and followed it too far,” Andy explained. His walk into the sand dunes began at 2:00 p.m., and it was heavy slugging through deep drifts of snow. “By 4:30 p.m., my legs were toast. I was fighting through drifts making my legs tired, and I couldn’t get my legs to move anymore. I knew where I came from, but I didn’t have the strength to get back.”

It didn’t take long before it began getting dark, and Andy realized he wasn’t going to make it back to his truck where his sons were waiting. Even though he had no way of communicating with them because he had left his cell phone in his truck, Andy’s medical training kicked in, and he knew exactly what he had to do. Andy is a First Aid and CPR instructor and worked as an EMT for ten years.

“I ended up digging a hole for shelter. I pulled my arms into my coveralls and laid on the ground. I couldn’t roll into a ball to keep my body heat because my legs were cramping from all the walking,” Andy said.

Andy planned to make it to the morning, but realistically he acknowledged, “I could die tonight.” But he wasn’t afraid and looked at it reasonably.

“Because I spent ten years on the ambulance, I had found people frozen, so I was realistic. I knew this is the real deal. I thought someone would come out in the morning, but I wasn’t really positive. I kept telling myself the odds were in my favour. I knew everything was on my side - my age, body, and God were on my side. I knew I would get really, really cold, but I’m not going to shut down. The weather was good, and I left a very obvious trail.”

Although he had done his best to leave an obvious trail, the wind had caused snow to drift and cover his tracks. However, the rescue team did find spots where he had sat down to rest and left an imprint in the snow.

Once the sun went down, Andy had no way of knowing what time it was. “I wasn’t shivering, but as I laid there, I started shivering more and more, and I prayed - God, I need you to warm me up!”

“Because of my familiarity with medicine, even in the tunnel I was making a plan for when I’d stop shivering. In late-stage hypothermia, people start losing their head and strip off their clothes, move around and are harder to find,” he explained.

Andy did all he knew to do, and trusted God would work out the rest. As he began to feel worse, he would “think forward.” As an EMT, he had been taught to ask what a patient would like in a few hours. “I’ve seen all this stuff, but never from the angle of being found,” Andy admitted. He also confessed, “I was so cold. I never felt anything like that. It invades every cell, and there is no heat left.”

While Andy waited it out in his tunnel, his oldest son Isaiah had notified the RCMP, who then contacted a Conservation Officer. Isaiah took the Conservation Officer out on the sled, along with the RCMP and volunteers joining the 12-member rescue team, which headed out at about 7:00 p.m. However, it was a long night. Finally, at 1:00 a.m., one of the team circled an area and spotted Andy sitting under a bush.

Andy said, “My teeth were chattering so bad that I couldn’t hear until the sled was close.” But when he heard it, he crawled out of his shelter and sat under a nearby bush. “It was exhilarating to hear the gentle whine of an internal combustion engine. It sounded like a chorus of angels. But I had no idea it was 1:00 in the morning. I yelled when I saw the sled.” Andy said.

The crew didn’t waste any time getting Andy on a sled. “I couldn’t even keep my butt down on the snowmobile because I would slip off. I was frozen, and my coveralls were frozen. But my arms worked fine, so I held on for dear life,” Andy said.

The team took Andy back to his truck, and from there, his son drove him to the hospital. The next day the Conservation Officer told Andy the rescue was a group effort and that his son told them exactly where his dad would be, and that’s where they found him. Andy was rescued eleven hours after he first began his walk into the hills, but he’s not quite the same fellow he used to be.

Andy explained, “I was at a work meeting, and some of the guys were whining about 2020, and I was like, up until a week ago, I thought the same thing. But now it feels pretty great!”

PHOTO: Andy Ortman