July• 2019 | 59source, don’t get injured,
and find an open spot to
make it easier for rescuers
to find you. Then stay put.
By mid-afternoon, Jean
had scouted out the place
she’d call home for how-
ever long she needed it.
She’d found two trees that
had fallen next to each
other. She used branches
to build a roof and to close
off one end of the space,
leaving an opening for
a ‘doorway’. Inside, she
stacked branches to use
at night to close off the
opening. She used moss to make the
ground softer.
At the end of day three, Jean and
Yoda entered the 2.4m-by-1.5m
shelter. As she settled in, so many
thoughts, some absurd, ran through
her head: she’d bought tickets with
a friend to go on an October cruise
that would take them to Greece, Italy
and Spain. Would she get to go? And
then there were those cherries. She
couldn’t stop thinking about them.
The next day, her fourth lost, Jean
settled into her survival routine.
Several times over the course of the
day, she made her way down a steep
hill to drink water. Taking care not to
fall, she dug her heels into the ground
and clung to the bushes.
She tried building a fire by gath-
ering dry pine needles and then
rubbing a small stick against a stone,hoping the stick would get warm
enough to ignite. It failed, but she
kept trying.
Starving, she ate wild currants,
tender pine needles, and even ants,
which had a lemony taste. Yoda, for
his part, impressed Jean with his
newfound ability to snatch flies out
of the air and dig up grubs for dinner.
By 4pm, Jean and Yoda had
climbed into her shelter. Despite the
moss, the hard ground was misera-
ble and the cold was embedded in
her bones. But she wasn’t giving up.
Although Jack had taken care of her
for so many years, Jean now harked
back to a time when she hadn’t been
dependent on anyone.
Shortly after World War II, her
family had moved to the US from
China. At school, kids would hurl
racial slurs and start fights with her.The shelter Jean made. She and her dog, Yoda,
ultimately lived in it forthree daysPHOTO COURTESY RICK PRENTICS/WASHINGTON EXPLORER SEARCH AND RESCUE KITSAP