Battling the elements

Edward Flores, limping, fearing frostbite and distraught over marital problems and separation from his sons, is also without a car.

It’s a strange tale, as circuitous as the routes he followed to get to Las Vegas, all of it occurring within the past two weeks. Part of the odyssey consumed much of last Saturday, through the winding, twisting cow-paths of eastern San Miguel and northern Guadalupe counties, as he and volunteers went in search of his car.

The experience, lasting until nightfall near Santa Rosa, also points out the dedication of volunteers, people who go to extremes to help: Rosalie Lopez, Percyne Gardner, Carol Silon, Pat Smith and Jo Rita Jordan, who have connections with Samaritan House, and/or the Las Vegas Peace and Justice Center.

Flores, from McMinnville, Tenn., arrived in Las Vegas by ambulance last week, picked up outside of Trementina, a near ghost town 40 miles east of Las Vegas, close to Trujillo.

Eddie, 36, felt he needed a fresh start, after leaving his wife and three boys in their latest home in Tulsa and contacting his brother in San Diego, who offered to put him up. Eddie made his way to Tucumcari and, further east, left I-40 “just to get away.” He took frontage roads, gravel and dirt roads and ended up miles from the freeway.

“I stopped to take some pictures and clear my head, and I walked quite a while and got disoriented. I never got back to my car,” he said. He left his keys in the car, with his billfold and important papers. He carried only his cell phone, which contained photos of his sons, Cameron, Tyler and Cody, 12, 6 and 4. He took shots of the scenery in that rugged area. He lost his cell phone in a deep crevice.

Then he got lost.

Thus began a six-day trek, on March 6, for a man who wasn’t dressed for the elements. His shoes were thin as slippers; he had no heavy jacket, no food or water. The late-winter snowfall last week was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he scooped up snow to melt on rocks for drinking. But that same change in weather forced him to find a place protected from the elements, where he slept fitfully.

He said the only signs of life were a pair of pronghorn sheep. He feared “becoming breakfast” for a wildcat or bear or being bitten by a rattlesnake. Eddie said he followed a dry creek bed for miles and tried to use “a mountain that looks like a man on his back” to orient him.

Eddie drank stagnant water out of pools and ate parts of cactuses. “I learned about that by watching ‘Man vs. Wild,’ on TV,” he said. “I scraped off the prickly stuff and ate the rest like a green Popsicle.”

After a week out, famished, delusional and enervated, Eddie located a cabin. “I hated to do it, but I broke in. I used a blade to open the latch.” From there, he dialed 911.

State Police say no breaking-and-entering charge is justified because there’s “no evidence of a real crime,” according to spokesman Craig Martin. In fact, Flores even locked the cabin up as he left.

A State Police officer picked him up and then called an ambulance. Flores spent several hours at Alta Vista Hospital, where he received treatment for dehydration, and upon discharge, he got a ride to Samaritan House, where he’s received hot meals, laundry services, hot showers and a warm bed.

“I hated to break into the cabin,” Eddie said, “but when you’re desperate …”

Smith, Lopez and Jordan and I spent most of Saturday retracing the route where Eddie left his car. Leaving around noon they began the almost-300-mile trip.

Lopez and Smith know the Tucumcari area. Jordan was equipped with a detailed map and a GPS device we set out to locate Eddie’s 2004 Pontiac. Several times, Eddie seemed convinced we’d found the spot where he’d left the Interstate. It involved numerous back-trackings, slow, tedious treks along barely-navigable trails and sightings of multiple, virtually identical signs identifying “Latigo Ranch,” 11 miles or “Bar Y Ranch,” 7 miles or “Cowden Ranch,” 9 miles.

Once, with darkness approaching, even with the extra-hour boost from Daylight Saving Time, we believed we’d found the car. “That shiny metal over there just has to be my car,” Flores said, but alas, it was the blade of a windmill. Smith made a U-turn when we saw some cows with new calves, expecting their portion of hay.

We reached a remote ranch headquarters, occupied by a Spanish-speaking couple at first reluctant to open the door to us. The foreman explained that yet another ranch existed 10 miles in a different direction and suggested we try that road.

But as darkness set in, we quit the search and headed back to Las Vegas. Flores has insisted he was foolish to have ventured so far from the car, leaving nearly all his possessions. Now, he may never get them back.

While stranded, fighting both sunburn and possible frostbite in both feet, he often wondered whether his life would end on one of the hills he’d climbed, or whether he’d slip off the mountain and die that day and that way.

Flores gets teary when he mentions his sons. He said that a couple of times, when he was the most despondent, looking for a crevasse in which to sleep, he’d hear the voice of his youngest son, Cody, 4, saying, “Daddy, Daddy, it’s time to wake up.”

An affable man who acquaintances say “speaks Spanish with a Southern accent,” Flores says he’s been treated well during his unplanned stay in the Meadow City. He cited the help of Percyne Gardner and Carol Silon, who allowed him to rest up at the Peace and Justice Center and who soaked his feet in Epsom salts.

And he appreciates the courtesy and kindness shown by the staff at Samaritan House, Rosalie Lopez, Pat Smith and Jo Rita Jordan.

Flores was scheduled to board a bus in Albuquerque on March 21, as he heads to his brother’s house in San Diego.

Lopez said, “We’re continuing to help him and we have other people involved. We’re trying hard to get him to California. ”