CURRY COUNTY, Ore. – Several people were rescued after getting stranded on an infamous rural Oregon road.
Bear Camp Road is the only route to the Oregon Coast between Highway 199 and Highway 38. The one-lane road is not plowed during the winter and can cause problems for drivers who venture onto it during seasonal closures.
The road has come under the national spotlight numerous times after people became stranded there due to adverse conditions, including the Kim family 2006. That particular incident ended with the death of James Kim after he walked over a dozen miles trying to find help.
Fifteen years later, there was a fear of history repeating itself after dispatchers received a concerning phone call.
On the evening of Sunday, December 26, someone called 9-1-1 in Curry County, but there was no voice due to bad cell phone reception. However, investigators were able to trace the call to snow-covered Bear Camp Road.
Shortly after that first call came in, another was made. This time, dispatchers were able to determine there were two adults from southwest Oregon, two young children, and three dogs that were stranded in the snow about six miles up Bear Camp Road from Agness. The vehicle they were in, a Ford F-350 pickup truck, didn’t carry any supplies other than some food and water.
The Curry County Sheriff’s Office said the caller, who walked about an hour downhill in the snow to get reception, was told to return to the vehicle to await rescue.
Search and rescue crews were deployed to the area and reached the vehicle by 10:25 p.m. After getting the pickup unstuck, it took about an hour to get the group back to Agness Road.
“The Curry County Sheriffs’ SAR team did an amazing job with all the obstacles they had to deal with to get the stranded family back to safety,” the sheriff’s office said. “This is another example of people putting themselves in harm’s way and SAR saving lives. Kudos for our dispatch for working hard to determine a general area where the 911 call came from and getting the resources out to rescue the stranded family.”
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