Missing biker found with collapsed lung after 5 days in Idaho wilderness. ‘True grit’

GRANGEVILLE (Idaho Statesman) — A motorcyclist survived in the Idaho wilderness for nearly a week after he wrecked his bike on a western road trip, officials said.

The Montana man survived by drinking water from a creek near the campground where he was stranded for five days, the Idaho County Sheriff’s Office said Friday, Aug. 16, on Facebook.

Around 1:42 p.m. that day, the International Emergency Response Coordination Center called Idaho County Dispatch and said the center had received an SOS call from a Garmin inReach device, officials said.

“The first message didn’t state if there was an emergency, and the second advised the missing biker had been found alive but was in bad shape,” officials said. “A later message from the Garmin confirmed it was missing person Zachary Demoss.”

Dispatch sent an ambulance, a rescue helicopter and emergency responders from several agencies to Demoss’ coordinates at the Lost Creek Campground near milepost 136 on Highway 12 — near where Demoss’ black 2000 Kawasaki Vulcan was last seen parked around 4:30 p.m. Aug. 11, officials said.

Demoss was on the motorcycle road trip with two of his biker friends, whom he told to ride ahead of him that day, Cowboy State Daily reported.

But Demoss didn’t show up to the spot where they had agreed to meet farther east on the highway, so they went back to look for him — to no avail, officials said.

The 24-year-old had vanished.

Multiple agencies across Idaho and Montana searched for him for days on foot and above with drones and helicopters, but “no evidence of a crash or significant clues from Demoss’ cell phone emerged,” Big Country News reported.

Demoss’ family and friends also searched for him on foot until officials scaled back the search on Friday, Aug. 16.

Family friends Greg and Danielle Common decided to take matters into their own hands that day, and it paid off, Greg Common said in a post in the Facebook group “Finding Zachary Demoss.”

“We have been friends with Zach since he was in the 9th grade, he is (one of our son’s) best friends,” Common said, adding that Demoss’ absence was “gnawing” at him. “I was watching the page every 5 mins looking for updates, when the search began to dwindle I couldn’t take it anymore. My wife and I loaded up and took off.”

Common rides motorcycles and had a pretty good idea of where to look, he said.

“We started on the Montana side because they needed people there. Walk almost 30 miles all while my heart told me it was the wrong area,” he said. “Started the next day 5 miles below where he was last seen. When I found him he was 25 feet from the road. Bike and Zach were absolutely hidden.”

Finding him there was “surreal,” Common told KTVB.

They got to the Eagle Mountain Trailhead and figured Demoss wouldn’t be there because there were so many campers nearby, the station reported.

“I come around the corner and I see this F-150 sitting in this pullout and out of the corner of my eye I see a guy laying by the river,” Common told the station. “And Zach rolls over and he opens his eyes and he says ‘hey man I’ve been in a wreck. I’m in a bad way.’ And it’s like no way we just found you.”

Common rushed down to Demoss and hit the SOS button on his Garmin inReach, he told the station.

“Zach was tough enough to hold out for five days on that mountain while he’s seeing people walking by,” he told the station. “He tried to holler at ‘em. He tried to get their attention. So many people went by.”

Demoss’ mother, Ruth Rickenbacher, called it a miracle in a post on Facebook.

“The couple that found him was one of his best friends’ dad and mom,” she said. “He said he heard Greg’s and (Danielle) Common’s voice and when he opened his eyes he was so relieved.”

Demoss was “alert and conscious” when emergency personnel got to him, officials said. The Life Flight helicopter took him to a hospital in Missoula, Montana.

Now he faces a long road to recovery, she said. In addition to multiple broken ribs on his right side and a collapsed right lung, he may need surgery on his shoulder and right ankle, along with a possible left hip replacement.

Rickenbacher described feeling “heartbroken” at the end of each day during the search “as we walked mile by mile until dark only to end the day on defeat.”

“His dad and I never stopped believing he would be found in any other way than alive,” she said. “My son just is one of those men that have true grit….Right now Zachary is profoundly grateful to be alive.”