A long-distance runner was lost for 30 days in the Washington state desert before escaping the brink of death.
What was supposed to be a one-day excursion for Robert Schock, 39, became a month-long fight for his life without food, shelter, clothing or cell phone service.
“[The ordeal] it’s affected me,” Schock told People, “and I’ve aged a few years because of it.”
“I hope to get those years back.”
The musician from Blaine, Washington had planned a 20-mile run when he arrived at North Cascades National Park with his dog, Freddy, on July 31.
“I’m an ultra runner,” Schock said in an exclusive interview. “I am not a climber. I don’t pack backpacks and go on multi-day trips. I don’t know how to fish. I want to finish a course as soon as I can and go back home. So I had no shirt. I had a pair of shorts, I had Fred and a dog pan. These were the only items in my small backpack.”
Schock was not prepared for his curiosity to lead him so far astray.
He had set out to see them to the Chilliwack River Trail from the Copper Ridge Trail, crossing the river by cable car. However, his outdated map did not account for the fires in 2021 and 2022, which removed parts of the trail.
“When I got out there, the trail wasn’t there anymore,” Schock said. “I was curious to know what happened to this trail, and curiosity kind of kept me going.”
This was the point at which he had lost his way.
His cell phone died on the second day. On the third day, he sent his dog to find their home.
Schock began to lose track of time. “I wasn’t doing well.”
He found a nesting place previously inhabited by bears. He made do with what he could find.
“I ate that thing all day and it tasted like a normal mushroom you’d have on a pizza or something,” he says. “It was the only thing I had to eat all the time, apart from berries, they were so bad.”
Schock confessed that his calls for help became less frequent as the days passed — as he began to give up hope.
Meanwhile, on August 4, the Whatcom Humane Society in Washington state called Schock’s mother, Jan Thompson, in North Carolina, reporting that they had found Freddy but could not reach Schock. Thompson then realized she also hadn’t heard from her son after he missed her previous call on July 31.
From across the country, she had no idea her son planned to go on a run. On August 5, she called the Whatcom Police Department, who quickly informed her that his car had already been found.
Thompson rebuffed officers who suggested her son had gone into the woods on purpose. she knew it wasn’t like that,” she said. “Honestly, I never felt that he was missing from the park, despite the odds.”
By day 30, he had collapsed from the bank of the Chilliwack River with severe dysentery and “really felt like I was close to death,” he told People.
“I was sitting there naked and I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the night,” he said. “So I said, ‘I’m going to scream one last time.’ I said, ‘Help!'”
This time, his screams were heard: Members of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association were returning to their campsite after doing maintenance work on a trail when Schock screamed one last time.
He was soon airlifted to a hospital where he spent another month recovering, during which time his mother and stepfather came by.
“I learned details of his story in bits and pieces,” Thompson said. “Part of me doesn’t want to know because I can’t bear to think how he suffered.”
Schock’s recovery now continues in Ohio where he grew up, at the home of his father and stepmother.
He told People that he plans to return to the Pacific Northwest to pursue his musical aspirations and running — though nowhere near the North Cascades, he admitted.
Of the first responders and rescuers who found his nearly lifeless body, Schock said, “It’s an understatement to say how truly grateful I am to those people who were there that day because it was so close to the finish line.”
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