Whistle Ends Injured Skier’s 8-Day Ordeal

A cross-country skier who survived eight days in the backcountry with a broken leg and little food or water was rescued Monday when searchers heard him blowing on his emergency whistle.

Charles Horton, 55, was hospitalized in fair condition with frostbite, mild hypothermia and dehydration in addition to his broken leg, authorities said.

“Mentally, he’s doing awesome. Thoroughly amazing,” said friend Mary O’Brien.

Horton, a Steamboat Springs massage therapist and experienced outdoorsman, was injured April 17 on a planned one-day ski trip not far from town, about 160 miles northwest of Denver.

He wasn’t reported missing until Sunday, a week later, because he hadn’t told anyone when he expected to return, and almost everyone who knew him was out of town, O’Brien said.

“His co-workers were gone, I was gone, his girlfriend was gone. We were all missing the fact that he was missing,” she said. “It was a mad mess.”

His landlords called the Sheriff’s Department when they returned from vacation Sunday, Rio Blanco County Sheriff Si Woodruff said.

O’Brien said Horton spent the first two nights under a tree, sleeping on boughs and building a fire to keep warm.

Temperatures dipped into the 20s at midweek when a cold front moved through, but little snow fell, National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Nadler said.

On Tuesday, Horton decided to start toward his car, nearly three miles away. Crawling on his back, supporting himself with his elbows and dragging his broken leg behind, he covered about 200 yards in 10 hours, she said.

“He decided it was taking too much energy to move so he decided he was staying put,” O’Brien said.

Rescuers found him about two miles from their command center, barely able to speak. Searchers on snowmobiles would periodically stop, shut down their engines and blow whistles. On one stop, they heard Horton blowing his whistle in response.

“We all said that if anybody could [survive], it would be him,” O’Brien said. “He’s not the type that would panic.”