Central Oregon’s snowbound survivor, who sustained himself by eating only three packets of hot sauce while stranded in his SUV last week, is kind of busy right now.
He’s got several feet of snow on the roof. His house doesn’t have water. And he still needs to dig out the Toyota 4Runner he and his dog lived in for five long days.
“I have my life to still take care of,” said Jeremy Taylor, 36, during a brief phone conversation Sunday.
Taylor’s story of survival captured the attention of national and international media this weekend when the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office announced the missing man not only had been found Friday — but that he “used a few taco sauce packets” as food.
“Oregon man survives chilly ordeal by eating hot sauce packets,” blared The Guardian.
“Man, dog survive 5 days in Oregon snow: ‘Taco Bell fire sauce saves lives!'” proclaimed USA Today.
The jokes write themselves. But, in reality, the situation could have been deadly.
Janet Main-Jones worried deeply about her son. He’d last been seen at a gas station in Sunriver on Sunday. Family realized he was missing Wednesday and contacted authorities.
Finding Taylor would not be easy. He had recently lost his phone, making it impossible to electronically pinpoint where he might be. And the snow kept falling.
“I didn’t think he was going to come out alive,” his mother said. “After five days, in that kind of weather, who survives that?”
Taylor is an avid outdoorsman. As a boy growing up in California, he would challenge his mom to uphill races, him on a three-wheeler, her on a horse. As an adult, Taylor was known to park his dirt bike in the living room.
A construction worker, he’d moved to Sunriver several years ago following work opportunities. He loved it. He called it “Snowriver.”
And now he was stranded in freezing temperatures, snow falling with no end in sight, whereabouts unknown.
“He’s been outdoors. He’s familiar with his area. And he knew he was in trouble,” said Main-Jones, who spoke with Taylor after his rescue.
Main-Jones said her son had planned to head into the Deschutes National Forest with his dog, Ally, to “go out and clear his head” on Sunday, as he often did. But Taylor told authorities his vehicle became stuck in the snow so he decided to spend the night.
When he awoke Monday, more snow had fallen, making it difficult to even open the door.
Taylor attempted to hike out by making improvised snowshoes from a portion of his vehicle’s roof rack.
“He’s pretty thoughtful about stuff like that,” his mother said.
But Taylor struggled to make it through the snow. His dog, a red tri-colored Australian Shephard, struggled even more. He tried carrying her, Taylor’s mother said.
It was too hard. In the end, they returned to the 4Runner.
Taylor had a sleeping bag in the vehicle, which he used to stay warm. In the coldest hours, usually around 2:30 a.m., Taylor would start the engine and blast the heat full blast, his mother said.
“Thank god he had a full tank of gas,” she said.
It’s not clear exactly how much snow surrounded Taylor as he waited. But it was a lot.
Data collected from a slightly higher elevation to the south reported total snow cover of 44 inches on Sunday. It had climbed to 68 inches by Thursday, said David Bishop, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, who provided data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“A solid two feet” of snowfall, he said.
In the back of her mind, Taylor’s mother couldn’t help but think about the Kim family, who got stranded for more than a week in snow on a remote Southern Oregon mountain road in 2006. James Kim hiked on foot in search of help but died of hypothermia; his wife and children were eventually found alive in their vehicle.
Whether Taylor worried about his own fate isn’t clear. He told him mom, simply, that “he was just bored” over the days.
Taylor’s parents credited friends and community members with helping find their missing son.
It was one of Taylor’s neighbors who hopped on a snowmobile and eventually located the stranded vehicle on Friday, his mother said. Authorities reported that Taylor was found at about 2:30 p.m. on Forest Service Road 40 near Wake Butte, west of Sunriver.
Taylor posted a message to his Facebook page Friday night offering thanks.
“Thank you everyone, I’m safe my Ally dog is safe. I really appreciate all the help. Got lucky, lets (sic) never do that again. I’ll be in touch with everyone soon.”
In response to a friend’s comment about how he ate three Taco Bell hot sauce packets during the ordeal, Taylor joked: “Taco Bell fire sauce saves lives!”
The rest is internet history.
“When they came out, the dog was as hungry as he was,” Taylor’s step-father, Jeff Jones, said.
Taylor, in a brief conversation Sunday, said he appreciated that his is a feel-good story. But he’s not much for the attention.
“I’m just kind of overwhelmed,” Taylor said before rushing off the phone.
The snow on his roof apparently wasn’t going to shovel itself.
