LOST IN THE WOODS60 | July• 2019Her father had sat Jean down and
offered this advice: you are a little
person. You won’t be strong physi-
cally. You must be strong internally.
Somehow, some way, he was say-
ing, Jean had to take care of herself.
Hungry, tired and growing weak,
Jean drifted off to sleep repeating
her father’s words.B
y now, Jean’s brother
in Seattle had become
concerned. Numerous
calls to Jean had not
been returned, and when he drove
the two hours to her home, there
was no sign of her. He contacted
the sheriff’s office, which sent a
missing-person report to all govern-
mental agencies, including an office
at Olympic National Park. At 1.30pm
on July 22, five days into Jean’s
odyssey, a park employee spotted
the Explorer. He radioed it in, setting
in motion a series of alerts that end-
ed with Zachary Gray, of the park’s
search-and-rescue operations squad,
gathering a handful of searchers to
look for Jean.
They met at her parked Explorer.
Dust and water spots indicated the
vehicle had been there for sever-
al days. Searchers walked into the
woods, calling Jean’s name. They
found nothing. At 7pm, with nightfall
approaching, the search was halted.
The search began again the next
day at 6am. Gray now had a team of
37 under his command, which hesplit into four groups heading out in
different directions. Still, he couldn’t
buck the nagging feeling that this
would end poorly. At 71, Jean was
likely disoriented and probably in-
jured. Gray had been on ten searches
already that year. Nearly all had end-
ed when the team found a body.
At noon, Gray’s two-way radio
crackled. A searcher had found a plas-
tic urn with Jack Geer’s name on the
side. Gray had other teams focus on an
800 metre radius from where the urn
was found. Hours passed. Nothing.
Gray radioed to request a helicop-
ter. Once aboard, he searched below
where the urn had been found. Jeanmight have fallen into the gully and
dropped the urn. Injured, she like-
ly would have continued walking
downhill until she either collapsed
or died. Flying 90 metres above tree
level, Gray saw nothing but a sea of
green. He had another idea. If Jean
were somehow alive, she’d need
water. He studied the terrain. Far
away, he spotted a creek. The pilot
made two passes. Nothing. WaitAS THE
HELICOPTER
FLEW 90 METRES
ABOVE TREE
LEVEL, GRAY SAW
NOTHING BUT A
SEA OF GREEN