Port Alberni, B.C. — He told an incredible story of miraculous survival in the wilderness that caught the imagination of the police officers and the news media.
But his fantasy fizzled as investigators discovered the unbelievable tale really was unbelievable.
On Monday morning, a truck driver discovered the middle-aged man lying in the sand about a metre down the slope on the edge of a B.C. logging road.
The man recounted a tale that was splashed across the top of the Alberni Valley Times. "Crash survivor crawls up 50 metre cliff to safety," the headline says; "Man survives serious injuries and five nights on the mountain," the subhead says.
RCMP are now questioning the story of a man who said he spent five nights fighting for survival after driving this truck off a B.C. cliff. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)
The newspaper reported that the "crash victim" survived five nights on the side of a mountain and was in hospital being treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries and hypothermia.
Police told the paper that the Port Alberni man drove his blue Ford pickup truck over a steep embankment and, despite his injuries, was able to get out and climb up the 50-metre slope over five laborious days.
The RCMP put out a news release about the accident.
"He really must have had a strong will to live," RCMP Corporal Richard Martin told the Alberni Valley Times. "I couldn't believe the [slope] he climbed up. ... I don't know how long it took him to make it to the top. I don't think he really knows how long it took him."
However, the tale of survival fell apart Tuesday when police said the man's mother had spotted him in Port Alberni on Saturday, less than 48 hours before the trucker found him.
Corporal Mike Dorran said in an interview that the man has a history of going missing for days at a time. He said police have not determined whether the man was in the truck when it went over the embankment and down the slope.
"We looked at what the victim told us," Cpl. Dorran said. "We think he may have gone off the road and been out there for a day or so."
The incident happened in an isolated spot that car thieves have used to dump stolen vehicles, he said.
The man told his rescuers a much grander story: He dragged himself up the sandy slope at the edge of the Douglas-fir and Sitka-spruce forest, metre by metre. Frequently, he slid back down. Again and again, he pushed himself back up. Eventually, he felt he could not inch his way up any further, he recounted, and just lay there, hoping someone would find him.
Perry Pelletier, a tow-truck driver who was the second person to arrive at the accident site, was convinced he had found a person in distress.
"Someone must have been looking over him," Mr. Pelletier said in an interview in Port Alberni. "It just wasn't his turn [to die]."
The identity of the middle-aged man has not been released.
Hospital staff refused to comment about the man or the incident. A woman who answered the phone at his residence hung up when a reporter identified himself.
The incident happened on a road on Mount Arrowsmith, about two kilometres off the main road that runs into the Vancouver Island mill town of Port Alberni, population 20,000.
Police said the pickup truck went off the gravel logging road, tumbled down the slope and stopped upside down at the tree line below. The wrecked, overturned truck was difficult to see from the road.
No skid marks were evident at the scene Tuesday. The truck appeared battered, with its front window smashed, and it appeared the truck's fall had been stopped by a large tree.
Mr. Pelletier said the man had a cut on his forehead when he was found, but he was not bleeding.
"Other than that, he just looked pretty muddy," he said.
Mr. Pelletier said the logging-truck driver who found the man had spotted a pale orange jacket on the slope off the side of a narrow, winding road and went to check it.
After the emergency call for help went out over the radio, Mr. Pelletier arrived and found the man lying on his stomach in sand about two metres off the road. He was conscious and coherent, and knew his name and knew where he was, Mr. Pelletier said.
"He looked just completely worn out," Mr. Pelletier said. "He appeared to have something like hypothermia. But he was really glad to see us. He just kept saying 'thank you, thank you,' over and over."
Mr. Pelletier said he and the truck driver tried to keep the man warm. The man wanted someone to phone his wife to let her know he was all right, he said.
Police and an ambulance arrived about 10 minutes later, Mr. Pelletier said.
