Man rescued after lengthy ordeal in the snowstorm

By Michael Glover

Herald-Tribune

Fort Scott, Kan. -- A cold, exhausted Jim Bartlett endured being stranded in the snow by seeking shelter in a trailer, not knowing how long it would be before anyone found him in the bleak snowstorm that struck on Thursday.

Rescue workers found Bartlett in an unoccupied trailer used by hunters in an isolated area near Tomahawk Road and 110th Street early Friday morning. He had spent more than four hours in the trailer.

It all started around 10:30 p.m., Thursday, when Bartlett's shift at the U.S. Post Office in Fort Scott ended. Bartlett began driving toward his home at the 700 block of Unity Road, located in rural northeast Bourbon County. The first leg of his journey was on U.S. Highway 54 -- a route already snow packed and disastrous at the time. The county roads Bartlett needed to get home were even worse.

The winter storm that started on Thursday and ended Friday morning dumped about 18 to 20 inches of snow in northern Bourbon County. Fort Scott received about 13 inches, which classified it as the heaviest snow storm in the last 20 years.

Bartlett said while driving on the rural roads, he was "just pushing the snow" with the front of his 1989 Chevrolet four-wheel drive truck, he said in a telephone interview on Friday. "There were no tracks on the road. There wasn't anything."

The truck became stuck about four miles from his house. He revved up the engine so much he fears it might be damaged or destroyed. Bartlett got out of the truck and started walking, a decision he now second-guesses.

"Looking back on it now, I probably should've gotten a hotel in Fort Scott for the night," Bartlett said.

When he started walking, the snow was "up to my knees," he recalled, with some snow drifts reaching up to his waist. The walk would've been difficult for a person wearing snowshoes, but Bartlett made the trek in tennis shoes.

He walked about a mile until blizzard-like conditions forced him inside the trailer. He wrapped up in a blanket to keep somewhat warm in the freezing trailer.

"I was just wearing down," he said. "I thought frost-bite was setting in my feet," he said.

B.J. Bartlett contacted Fort Scott Police around 1:30 a.m., telling them her husband hadn't come home from work. She knew the roads were bad and worried about his safety.

But the storm had caused widespread problems for motorists who either got stuck or slid off the road after the storm. Fort Scott police were inundated with calls from stranded drivers.

She called back an hour later. No one was looking for Bartlett until 4:30 a.m., when Bourbon County District No. 3 Coordinator Delwin Mumbower began searching. Justin Bartlett, B.J.'s step-son, called Mumbower, who found tire tracks that led to Bartlett's truck on Tomahawk Road, she said. Mumbower called Justin after he and another rescue worker followed foot tracks to the trailer, B.J. said.

Jim said the ordeal exhausted him, but suffers no lingering health effects. He declined medical attention and is resting at home.

"He's very lucky," B.J. Bartlett, his wife, said. "It could've been a lot worse."