BOUNTIFUL, Utah (ABC 4 News) – A father and son are stranded in the mountains above Bountiful for close to 24 hours after they lose their way in a storm.
Robert Sutton and his 15-year-old son Cole left Wednesday for a snowmobile trip above Bountiful. When a storm moved in Wednesday night the two got lost in the fog and decided to stay the night outdoors.
Cole’s maternal grandmother Barbara Selleneit explained, “My daughter called me this morning about 7:30 and said I can’t get a hold of Cole. They went snowmobiling yesterday and I can’t get a hold of him. He’s not answering my phone calls, it just goes to voicemail.”
Selleneit drove by Robert’s house, but when he and Cole were no where to be found she calls his Robert’s mother. “She told me he said ‘We’re fine. We’re building a fire. We’re warm enough. We’ll be okay, don’t worry,’” explained Selleneit.
By Thursday morning the phone calls stopped and the text messages began sounding a little more desperate.
“We’re stranded. We’re on a ridge. We’re setting one of the snowmobiles on fire,” recalled Selleneit.
That text message really had the Davis County Sheriff’s Department concerned.
Sgt. Susan Poulsen said, “They wanted to use it for fire to stay warm but they were also thinking that it would alert the helicopter, or whatever, to their location. If they did it this morning and it’s burned out we were unable to make contact with a fire up there.”
Then the phones went silent. Half a dozen Davis County Search and Rescue members were out on snowmobiles searching for the pair as was the Highway Patrol helicopter, but because of the conditions they couldn’t see anything on the ground.
Progress wasn’t being made and Davis County called in rescuers from Weber County, but right after they showed up on the scene the two were located, not by rescuers but by a father and son snowmobile team who know the area well. The two found the missing snowmobilers at the bottom of a ridge, cold but alive.
Cole, who lives in San Diego, was visiting his father for the week. He called his mother in California just before 6pm to let her know he was safe and sound.
