|
McDowell woman found OK after 24-hour search
BY JAMES JACENICH AND ANNE ADAMS • STAFF WRITERS
 | | Pat Ross- McGraw, author and beloved neighbor and friend in the area, spent the night in the woods, unafraid, but cold. |
|
McDOWELL - Pat Ross-McGraw, 63, wife of McDowell resident Ken McGraw, left her home at Hayfields Farm Monday at 4:30 p.m. for a late afternoon walk. Nearly 24 hours later, she walked out of the woods unharmed.
"I was exhausted, and freezing," she said Wednesday.
Ross-McGraw, a well-known author, explained she had been in a terrific mood, on the clear, fall Monday. Her literary agent was sending off her most recent manuscript to publishers and she was delighted. "That's the irony," she said. "I was feeling so good, so I decided to go for a walk."
Ross-McGraw headed up a well-known path on Hayfields Farm, in search of a beautiful waterfall Ken had once shown her. She found it, but when she headed back, she took the wrong turn on a forked path and found herself going the wrong direction.
"I had wandered off the main path," she said, "and then once I was deep in the woods, and it was getting dark, I became disoriented about where I was. This is rough terrain up here, and I kept looking for a road."
 | | Cambata Industries of Millboro donated a helicopter to search for Pat Ross McGraw. Recorder photo by James Jacenich) |
|
Her family got concerned when she didn't return by 6:30 p.m. that evening and they started searching. They were worried because it wasn't like her to miss supper. Ross-McGraw was in good physical condition, but she did have some health considerations that sent up a red flag, so the family called in friends to help search for her.
By 10 p.m. they had been unsuccessful, and notified the Highland County Sheriff's office.
Sheriff Herbert Lightner responded and assumed command of a search and rescue operation that would last 24 hours.
More than 200 volunteers worked through the night and all day Tuesday looking for her.
In the meantime, Ross-McGraw said, "I knew I was stuck with this situation, and was going to have to spend the night in the woods." She was not frightened, she said.
"I love the woods. The sky was magnificent; I saw a coyote. I was not the least bit scared."
She also saw a bear with a cub, "but I layed low," she said. "Something furry came by me in the night, too, but it ran off."
She drank water from the waterfall, but struggled to stay warm enough; the temperature had been in the 40s. Fortunately she was wearing a sweatsuit outfit. "I figured I'd be found," she said, "so I just stayed put."
During the night, she could hear an ATV driven by Ken's son, Brian. "He was out all night," Ross-McGraw said, "but he was above me. I was yelling but he couldn't hear me. I knew if anyone could find me, it was Brian. He knows this farm so well.
The McDowell Volunteer Fire Department and Highland County Rescue Squad were among the first responders to the farm. The Virginia State Police, Department of Transportation, Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Department of Corrections joined them. A state police airplane flew over the search area; and Cambata Industries of Millboro donated a helicopter to the effort.
Monday night, a search party used an infrared scope in hopes of picking up a trace of Ross-McGraw's body heat. A special state police aircraft with an infrared camera was called but was unavailable, Lightner said. "If I had that resource, I could have possibly found her within 15 minutes," he said.
Ross-McGraw said as soon as she saw the sun the next morning, she headed East, looking for the path and road back to Hayfields.
By Tuesday afternoon, the search had expanded to one and a half miles from the house, with plans for the search to continue to expand to two miles, two and a half, and up to five miles, with updates and reevaluations of the search effort each step of the way.
The Bullpasture River provided a natural barrier to the west and the Bullpasture Mountain was another barrier to the east.
Search coordinators based their search on information the family provided about Ross-McGraw's physical condition. The primary search was concentrated close to the house and along a route she normally walked. Searchers did not think that she could have gotten very far.
"We'll expand the search area as personnel allows," said Lightner at the time. He had been up since he got the call the night before. He was tired, but focused.
The McGraw home was filled with state police and rescue experts called in to assist; it had become a makeshift command post for the searchers, who had access to computers, telephones and copy machines - things they needed to gather and interpret data for the search.
McDowell Volunteer Fire Department Ladies' Auxiliary provided lunch for search crews. Frostie Bun, Mountain Hideaway and High's restaurants provided food. Stonewall Grocery and Gas-N'Go also contributed snacks and drinks. People took time off work or dedicated lunch breaks to assist. By Tuesday afternoon, a line of vehicles filled the lane near the house and a field was turned into a parking lot as fresh volunteers started to pour in for a second night of searching.
The sea of volunteers stood around the front yard at the McGraw home, silent and somber, awaiting orders. Every few minutes a crew was dispatched to search a specific area and to report their findings.
Ross-McGraw's daughter Erica had flown down from New York, and her family and friends had come from all over Highland and Bath to join the search.
The sheriff called for bloodhounds, but Lightner said the dogs were having trouble distinguishing Ross- McGraw's scent from the people who were searching for her. Another limitation was the dry weather. Smell depends on the availability of airborne particles from the subject being left behind, Lightner said. Moisture in the air captures the particles as it condenses and falls to earth where the dogs are able to pick up the scent and follow a path. Airborne particles disperse quickly in air and spread over a large area making it even more difficult to pinpoint a direction of movement. Though dogs have an acute sense of smell, they can be confused by many similar smells that mask or cover up the target scent, such as those from the search parties.
Rescue coordinators made calculated decisions based the circumstances to decide when, where and what resources to dispatch. McDowell VFD fire chief Doug Siron communicated directly with each search party, handing out assignments he received from rescue coordinators at the command post. Keeping a strict line of communication ensured that information was not lost and effort was not wasted.
Numerous state vehicles and personnel were involved; other specialized equipment to search on land and in the air arrived; and a dive team was called to search the pond near the house and other sources of deep water. The Top of the Valley Search and Rescue association and the Appalachian Rescue organization also contributed to the search effort at Highland's request.
Lightner said by the end of Tuesday the primary search area had been thoroughly covered. He was confident, based on the information he had and the advice of the search organizations involved, that Ross-McGraw would be found within five miles of her home.
And she was.
Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, she walked out of the woods near Hupman Valley on Route 612 near a state wildlife management area, about 2.5-3 miles northeast of her home. "I was walking through, and that's when I saw Gray. I was so glad to see him!" she recalled.
Gray Baker is a utility supervisor for Pittman Tree and Landscaping, and had a crew clearing brush along Route 678 near Clover Creek that afternoon. Baker had joined the search and was assigned to driving along roads on the perimeter of the primary search area while others were searching along Route 678 under the direction of the command post.
When he found her, she appeared to be in good condition. She asked Baker, "Do you have something cold to drink?"
As she was taken back to the house, Ross-McGraw said she was stunned by the numbers of vehicles and people there. "I was just absolutely overwhelmed," she said of the rescuers she had heard but not seen during the ordeal.
She was tired and possibly suffering from the effects of dehydration and lack of food, so she was taken to Bath Community Hospital for observation for the night. By Wednesday, her husband had brought her back to the farm.
"I am so glad to be home," she said, explaining how the experience had brought her life into sharp focus. "I can see how someone could be very traumatized by this kind of thing," she added. "But I've been walking in the woods since I was a little girl.
"It does make you realize how valuable life is," she added.
Of course, as an author, Ross-McGraw is already thinking about how her experience can be translated into a novel or children's story.
"That's what you do when you write," she said. "You sort of write in your head, so that's what I did in the woods."
Wednesday afternoon, she did something else, too: She walked back to the waterfall with her family.
| 
)
)