Jeremey Humphrey, Kent State ’98, successfully found a woman who had been missing in the Idaho wilderness for days.
Humphrey is an ultrarunner, an intense form of long-distance running where races must be longer than a marathon’s 26.2 miles. Often these ultramarathons – or “ultras” are closer to the 50-mile or 100-mile mark, although many exceed it like the Badwater Ultra across California’s Badwater desert basin, a 135-mile race that begins at 279-feet below sea level and rises to 8360-feet on Mount Whitney or the Grand to Grand Ultra, 147-miles along the rim of the Grand Canyon. The races held internationally are often equally grueling, like the Spartahlon, a 153-mile, 3-day race across Greece, the Marathon des Sables, a 6-day, 154-mile trek across the sand tunes of southern Morocco, or the 142.6-mile Jungle Ultra through the Amazon in Peru. Most ultras occur through extreme conditions or altitudes.
A regular competitor in these races, Humphrey has not been training as he usually would due to Covid-19 cancellations. Instead, he’s been focusing on challenging himself by running as far as he can for fun. “I’m usually training for 100-mile fitness,” he told Runner’s World, “With everything canceled, I’m out of my regimen and just running big stuff, lots of adventure runs. I haven’t run less than six hours in a long time.”
It was in early July Humphrey found a new incentive to run when he learned that a woman and her dog had disappeared.
The woman had been missing for several days before an investigation started because she hadn’t told many people where she was going or for how long. Humphrey was familiar with the area she was last known to be in after years of running, hiking, and camping nearby.
“I just had this strange, maybe spiritual, feeling from the moment I heard about it that I could see the entire thing and how it would play out if I went out,” he said. “I’ve been in the mountains my whole life and I’ve helped search and rescue before. I lost my dad and his twin brother when they fell climbing in Denali. The mountains have given a lot to me and taken a lot from me and some energy told me I had to do this.”
A search and rescue team had already begun working in a northern section of the area, so Humphrey decide to start at the southern end, relying heavily on the detail that she liked to run by lakes. He packed his bag with provisions for 40-miles and set off running.
Humphrey spent all day running near lakes and calling her name. At mile 20 he knew soon it would be time to turn around, but he decided to press on for a little longer. Finally, after ten hours of running, he heard a woman’s voice call back.
“I’m calling out, and it shocked me, I heard a female voice call back though I couldn’t see her,” he said. “I could sense the direction, so I cross this drainage, a little dip in the topography. I’m jumping over rocks and logs, and I see someone, and again when I’m about 300 yards away, that’s when I see her dog, so that’s a good sign. My adrenaline is up as I’m bounding down this hill, full sprint until I finally reach her.”
As instinct predicted, he did find the woman near a lake. She had not eaten in four days and was drinking the murky lake water to survive. Humphrey dumped his pack and gave her and her dog what was left of his food and electrolyte supplies. He called the rescue crew, and the woman and dog were airlifted out of the forest. Humphrey returned to the trail head where she had parked her car and drove it to the local fire department.
Besides sustaining some minor injuries, the woman is otherwise okay. She is recovering well, and she and Humphrey have spoken since. “She’s super tough,” he said. “She just wanted to eat pizza and ice cream.”
Humphrey will continue to run before winter storms come through the area. “Normally, running is super selfish and fueled by the desire to be a champion,” Humphrey said. “All these years of doing that, I feel like I had a skill set that made it possible to help someone else, and that feels good. It feels not so selfish.”
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