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.

[AnAmericanMother]

My B.S. meter is not quite pinned here. . . but her story just doesn't add up (then again you have to allow for filtering through a reporter or two who are probably just as ignorant as she is of anything beyond the No. 12 bus and an interstate highway for getting around . . . )

Still, how hard is it to follow water downhill? Or watch the sun? (But I love my Suunto compass and my GPS. Waypoints are your friends! :-D And a cellphone ain't a bad idea either.)

[SarahW]

::ping:: for your racoon experience

[riverrunner]

City slicker total unprepared equals lost in the woods. Very lucky she didn't die. She should of ate the snake and killed one of the coons for supper.

[2Trievers]

From the sounds of the sparse info in this story, one might assume that she had a tiff with her BF, stormed off in anger into woods and became disoriented. No one in their right mind takes a 3 y/o hiking without preparation, maps and a plan. She and son are lucky to be alive. Stupid is, as stupid does. &;-)

[AngrySpud]

"Any poisonous snakes there?"

There are no poisonous snakes east of Oregon's Cascade Mountains, but plenty of non-poisonous. I have no idea how she would have gotten bitten, unless she had the idea to catch and eat one.