Four days after Zachary DeMoss was last seen on an Idaho highway, the official search was scaled back. Across the state line in Oregon, a high school buddy’s father decided to take matters into his own hands.
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“I called my wife from work and said, ‘We’re going,’” recalled Greg Common, 45. “And my wife began charging all my stuff up and everything and getting all my gear ready while I drove home from work. Then we headed up the mountain.”
DeMoss, 24, and Common’s oldest son had become close friends as teenagers in Montana. Common thought there was a chance he could find DeMoss because he knew the area where the younger man went missing.
DeMoss, who lives in the Missoula area, had disappeared on a motorcycle outing Aug. 11 with two friends, the sheriff’s department in Idaho County reported. The two others had passed him on eastbound Highway 12, but when they stopped to wait for him, he never showed up. The following day, he was reported missing.
For three days, a search team including deputies, state police and DeMoss’ friends and relatives searched a 100-mile stretch of the highway, which crosses the Idaho Panhandle. There was no evidence of a crash, and the highway cameras also provided no clues, the sheriff’s department said.
On Aug. 15, the department said it would be downsizing the search. That’s where Common came in, driving 300 miles from his home in eastern Oregon.
On his first day of searching, he covered 30 miles in the corridor along the Lochsa River. The next day, he went out again.
“I did five miles already that morning, and then I was about a mile up, so sixth mile of the day,” said Common. “I look over and I see this guy laying down by the creek. I didn’t even recognize him … so I’m hollering at him. And he turns towards me and he says, ‘Man, I’ve been in a wreck. I’m in a bad way.’ And then I realize, I’m talking to Zach!”
For five days after being thrown off his motorcycle, the injured DeMoss had lain by a creek, becoming weaker. On the final two days, he could barely move, he told CNN; he got water by flinging his leather jacket into the creek and then drinking out of its pocket.
“I am so happy and thankful to be alive. I struggled so much with pain and death in the woods,” he told CNN. “But I just kept telling myself it was either a whole lotta pain or a little bit of death, and I wasn’t going to choose death.”
DeMoss told CNN he swerved to avoid hitting a deer and then flew 40 feet over a creek into a grassy remote area, separated from his bike.
“It happened really fast but I remember soaring through the air before I impacted,” he recalled.
Common said he discovered DeMoss in a dark hole in an overgrown area of forest.
“He’s like ‘Oh, man, thank God,’” Common said, “And so literally, he’s trying to hug me. He’s like, ‘I love you, man.’ And all he can move is an arm and he can move his head. The rest of him is pretty banged up.”
“The sheer will that it must have taken to survive five days like that. I can’t even imagine,” Common added.
Common used his satellite phone to make an SOS call, while his wife flagged down someone in a pickup truck who contacted a transportation department worker down the road.
Around 30 minutes later, a Life Flight helicopter was on the ground, according to Common.
DeMoss is still recovering from his injuries. He recently moved from intensive care to a regular hospital room, he told CNN.
Ruth Rickenbacher, DeMoss’ mother, said in a Facebook post that the injuries included a partially collapsed lung, a broken hip, and broken ribs.
“It’s like he was shaken like a rag doll,” she wrote.
His family is also hoping to raise money for his “long and expensive recovery” through a verified GoFundMe.
The-CNN-Wire
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