Stranded driver rescued after four days

After sitting in his stuck Cadillac on a remote mountain road for four days, Louis Rogers thought he was a goner.

The 67-year-old Lakeside musician had left the Flathead Thursday on a trip to Calder, Idaho, where he was going to perform for some friends.

After reaching the St. Regis area, Rogers thought he would try an alternative way to Avery, Idaho, on a route called the Gold Creek Road.

The road was plowed free of snow for several miles, but eventually conditions started to deteriorate.

About nine miles in, Rogers was looking for places to turn around, but he got stuck in a snowbank instead.

In an interview Monday, Rogers said walking out was not an option because of health problems that include diabetes and a history of heart problems. Rogers started taking some measures for survival, such as using an energy-drink can to melt snow for water.

He turned his car on intermittently to warm up on cold nights.

One night, he flashed his headlights at an airplane that was flying over, and he believes he got the  pilot’s attention, “but nothing came of it.”

He didn’t know it at the time, but a huge search was under way by the weekend involving more than 200 friends and relatives along with multiple law enforcement agencies.

By Sunday, he was weak from having no food and he was losing hope.

Four days had passed, and he had seen nobody, only a lone wolf that came near the car at one point. He started to pen a goodbye letter.

“I accepted that I was gone, because I’m not in the best of health,” Rogers said. “I just got the letter wrote, telling good-byes” to his friends and relatives.

It just so happened that on Sunday, a couple from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, decided to go on a drive in the St. Regis area. Scott and Penny Kalis had a four-wheel-drive vehicle and were able to get up as far as Rogers did on the Gold Creek Road.

“They said, ‘What are you doing way up here?’ And I said, “Dying, come in here and look,’” said Rogers, who showed them his letter.

Rogers said he was extremely weak by the time the Kalises got him to St. Regis. There, he encountered a Kalispell-area friend, Melvin Oftedahl, who informed Rogers that he and a lot of other people were looking for him.

“I guess I had way over 200 people looking for me. I had the FBI looking for me and I’ve never had them looking for me before,” Rogers said.

“I want to thank everybody who was looking for me and saying prayers for me. I love them all,” Rogers said. “You never know the friends that you have until something like this happens. I just feel really fortunate to have these friends.”

 Rogers said he got help from friends who pulled his Cadillac out, only to find that the engine stalled after a short drive down the Gold Creek Road. If that had happened while he was stuck, Rogers fears he would have gotten hypothermia.

Rogers had thanks for the owner of Schobers Towing, a St. Regis business that towed out his car for free. 

“He said I owe him a song,” said Rogers, who has played guitar for big names in the country music business, including Merle Haggard and George Jones.

Rogers said he did not require any hospitalization and he felt better after getting something to eat.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com