Survivor of Thanksgiving rescue glad for friends

Although his recent car accident makes one sensational story, a 250-foot fall down the side of a mountain, 36 hours spent upside-down in a crushed vehicle, Gardnerville resident Lee Duncan said the bigger story belongs to those who searched for and ultimately found him on Thanksgiving morning.

"The bigger story is about the people who cared enough to go look for me," said the 65-year-old insurance agent at his Gardnerville home on Wednesday. "Ron made not one, not two, but three trips. It wasn't easy. It took great effort, and he made that effort. He's just that kind of person. I'm extremely thankful."

Ron is Ron Santi, Johnson Lane resident, longtime friend of Duncan and fellow Carson Valley Lions Club member. It was Santi who got up early Thanksgiving morning, after a stormy, sleepless night, and drove up Spooner Summit three times checking each turnout and looking for Duncan, who had disappeared two days earlier.

On Nov. 25, Duncan attended a Lions meeting in north Lake Tahoe and didn't come home. His family reported him missing the following day, and Santi considered the possibility that his friend had been in a car accident.

On Thanksgiving Day, Santi's intuition led him up and down Highway 50. In a dismal fog, he combed the shoulder until he found a damaged tree on the hillside, and what looked like a wheel and metal body of some sort further down the mountain.

Santi later drove up Clear Creek Road, which parallels Highway 50, and found his friend, alive, inside his upside-down Jeep, which had been hidden by the surrounding trees and brush....

On Wednesday, Duncan was getting ready to go to his office in Minden for some light work. He is recovering from a broken wrist, a broken clavicle, three broken ribs and a cracked sternum. He was released from Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno two days after rescue personnel extricated him from the vehicle.

The Nevada Highway Patrol said Duncan would have suffered worse injuries if he hadn't been wearing his seat belt.

"I feel very good considering what I've gone through," Duncan said.

He recalled the night of the accident, when, looking for a turnout along Highway 50, he lost control of his 1994 Jeep Cherokee and careened off the edge of the mountain.

"I was going through the air and I didn't know what was below me," he said. "I was in the dark taking a ride."

Duncan remembers three separate impacts during the 250-foot fall. The first was the nose of his Jeep hitting the open embankment.

"After the initial hit, I just kept turning over," he said.

The second impact was a scraping smack as the vehicle crashed through pine trees, tearing off branches in the process. The third impact was the final thump of landing upside down in a brush thicket near Clear Creek Road.

"I was conscious the whole time," Duncan said. "I was hanging upside down. I unhooked myself and tried to get oriented. I couldn't move much. I was in one position, flat on the roof, and I had a strong suspicion that my wrist and shoulder were broken."

Duncan said he couldn't find any leverage to pull himself up, nor could he find a way out of the vehicle. So he waited.

"I was wondering if someone was going to discover me," he said. I "I knew I was close to the road. I could hear the cars go by. In the daytime on Wednesday, I saw the quick outline of cars, and I couldn't figure out why nobody could see me. I knew I was buried upside down, but I just assumed the wheels were sticking out."

Duncan spent 36 hours in the mountain elements before Santi located him.

"When it's all said and done, it was pretty cold," he said.

He said he feared frostbite, but did not fear death.

"I'm a matter-of-fact type of person," he said. "Whatever happens is going to happen. I wasn't thinking I was going to die. I don't think that way. But I did know that if I spent another night in the cold without food or water I may or may not have made it."

Duncan said his rescue was incredible. He thanked Santi and other friends and family members for their determination in finding him.

"As for me, it's going to be a healing process," he said. "Other than that, I am very fortunate."