A 48-year-old man from Arizona went with his 27-year-old friend to go snowmobiling in Utah. According to a report by Daily Mail published on Dec. 31 and updated on Jan. 1, the two men decided to go on a snowmobiling trip to Arizona. However, they ended up separating after a while and went different ways. His 27-year-old friend, Courtney Wood made his way back to the parking lot while Lawrence Orduno, the 48-year-old ended up getting stuck in a frozen canyon of snow.
Orduno was stuck in the frozen canyon for almost two days before he was found and rescued on Monday. Although he was stuck in the frozen canyon, he survived by making a snow cave out of pieces of his snowmobile. He did, however, leave his food behind but found that he did have some Gatorade left, although most of it was frozen, he did get to drink what was not frozen yet to jeep himself from dehydrating. He also thought he left his lighter behind. However, while he was emptying his pockets, the lighter fell out and he used it to thaw out more of the Gatorade to keep from dehydrating.
Orduno tried like crazy to dig his snowmobile out of the deep frozen canyon. He tried for a half hour to dig it out but he said,
It was just too deep in the snow, standing straight up and down.
According to YourWestValley, his truck was 8 miles away. He could have tried to walk to it before his snowmobile got stuck with him below it but dark was setting in and it was too cold. Then, when he got stuck in the frozen canyon, and after trying to dig his snowmobile out for 30 minutes straight, he decided to hunker down for the night and made a snow cave out of the pieces of his snowmobile and the snow around him. What he did was, he shaped the snow around him into a cave-like shelter and took some pieces of his snowmobile, the side covers from it to help keep the wind out. He then found some wood and made a small fire to help keep warm.
Rescuers found him on the second day by going down a path they didn’t search before on the first day. Orduno said if they wouldn’t have found him when they did, he was getting worried and was about to take some desperate measures by lighting his whole snowmobile on fire to keep warm.
Orduno said he is very grateful for the people who found him. He said:
I have no way of knowing all the people. I just want to tell them all thank you for all their help.
