Mom and son, 3, survive forest ordeal

Sacramento Bee ^ | July 14 2002 | Wayne Wilson and Elizabeth Hume

[2Trievers]

Surviving on berries and tree sap, a Sacramento woman and her 3-year-old son were reunited with family Thursday after spending seven nights lost in the rugged forests of Oregon's Coast Range.

Diane Annette Hoofard walked out of the brush carrying 3-foot-6, 30-pound Daniel Eastman and hailed a Weyerhauser logging crew not far from where she went missing on the Fourth of July.

[Shooter 2.5]

George Forslund must be the luckiest guy in the world.
Look officer, I don't know what happened to her. We had this little argument and I left. I don't know how they died and I don't know why her little boy was half-buried.

[pubmom]

What kind of a man leaves a woman with a three-year-old like this? Thank God things turned out the way they did.

[Tacis]

She and the kid had to walk way over to that little area where logging was allowed. The environmentalists prevented logging in the area in which she started. They like to have the dead bodies of they people who wander for days before they die to fertilize the trees that they visit evry couple of years.

Want to hear the lefties scream? Suggest that we put in a forrest like this the emergency water and supplies that they want us to put in the wilderness to keep the Mexican criminals alive.

[jdontom]

"I screamed for days and days and no one heard my cries, and then I heard these lumber guys in the distance," Hoofard said in a telephone interview. "When they found us I was just in tears and I fell in exhaustion." This is a grave mistake with these lumber guys in the forest. My first thought was what are these guys doing in the forest anyway. The enviros have us so programed to immediately find some suspecion about forestery personel actually doing their job.

[2Trievers]

Nominate him for scumbag of the year award!

[AngrySpud]

They don't say, but I'll bet she ran into a lot of poison oak, too. The Oregon Coast Range is full of it.

[Ditter]

I wonder what kind of snake bit her? Any poisonous snakes there?

[jimtorr]

No, there are no native poisonus snakes in Western Oregon. It's too cold and wet, I guess. You don't find the nasty critters until you get to the hot, dry areas of southern or eastern Oregon. Funny thing, but Eastern Oregon is half the state.

[jimtorr]

Let this be an object lesson for everybody. As soon as you realize that you're lost, and have no idea on how to get un-lost, just stay put. You're a lot easier to find if you're not wandering around.

Silly woman should have realized, though, that she wasn't very far from the coast and US Hwy 101. All she had to do was follow the setting sun, couldn't have been more than ten miles from the coast. Of course, she's from Oakland, a city person.

[glockmeister40]

Hoofard said she had been bitten by a snake, climbed up a tree to get away from a cougar and had to fight off a family of raccoons who challenged her for the cheese she was carrying...

This smells like a lot of crap. These critters will normally run from you. Climbing a tree won't stop a cougar.

Only luck kept her and her kid from a darwin award. If you go in to the woods, especially a place that's heavily treed, you'd better have a gps and a backup compass. A gps is inexpensive and a compass is even cheaper. Know what you're doing or else become a statistic.

[glockmeister40]

Funny thing, but Eastern Oregon is half the state

The better half - far fewer pantywaste liberals.

[ccmay]

Hoofard said she had been bitten by a snake, climbed up a tree to get away from a cougar and had to fight off a family of raccoons who challenged her for the cheese she was carrying...

"We had a little argument and he just left me there," Hoofard said.

Sounds a bit melodramatic to me. I wonder whether she was really lost, or just wanted to make her boyfriend sweat.

-ccm

[hillsborofox]

"She lost 24 pounds..."

Sign me up!

[jimtorr]

**Funny thing, but Eastern Oregon is half the state

The better half - far fewer pantywaste liberals.**

I agree with you there. East OR is a bit too extreme, climate wise, for me .

I really like the area west of Bend, though. From Sisters down to Hwy 58 and west to Oakridge. I've spent a lot of days catching trout and kokanee in Wikiup (sp?) and Craine Prairie Resevoirs. The Wallawa Mtns. are nice, too.

Aah, for simpler days of youth.

[Irene Adler]

How do you climb a tree with a three year old? Can a couger climb a tree or at least get as high in one as a woman holding a three year old child? And bitten by a snake, too. Weird story.

[Larry Lucido]

This story can't be true. Everyone knows the wild animals would have treated them compassionately, bringing them food, etc, while the loggers would have simply menaced them with their chainsaws.

[SarahW]

Family groups of Racoons will indeed behave just like this.
They will challenge almost like a pack of dogs.

[Larry Lucido]

Actually, this reminds me of the South Park rain forest episode, where Cartman is saved by the loggers while the rest of the "Getting Gay With Kids" troup are lost in the wilderness, dealing with local natives and guerrillas.