A hunting guide went from scouting for mule deer to a grueling fight for survival when he crashed his UTV. He had been in the Uintah Mountains in Utah with his six-year-old German shorthaired pointer named Buddy.
That's when he crashed his UTV and severely injured himself. He ended up crawling for 11 hours trying to get help. Speaking with Outdoor Life, Jake Schmitt opened up about how he survived. One of his tires hit a stump on an incline, and the vehicle flipped as he attempted to flee it. It crushed him and broke his left leg, dislocated his right should, broke his ribs, ankles, and sprained his wrists
"I was beat up like a rag doll," Schmitt says. "I stopped rolling, then assessed my legs while I could still hear the side-by-side rolling. And it was still running, so in my mind I'm thinking, 'I don't want to be the guy who dies out here and starts a wildfire.'"
Crashed His UTV
The UTV rolled more than 15 times, but his dog Buddy managed to escape the wreckage.
"No lights, no phone. Pistol, rifle, inReach, all gone. It was a yard sale," Schmitt says. "Everything was gone but my dog."
Gathering a roll of duct tape from the crash, he made a makeshift splint with pieces of the UTV and his belt.
"I wouldn't say I'm proud of myself, but I'm happy with the knowledge that I had," he says. "We live in a world where we have a thing for this and a thing for that, but when you get shipped down a mountain and it all flies away from you, that stuff doesn't mean anything. You need to know self-rescue."
He then began crawling, trying to find help after crashing the UTV. He crossed more than a half a dozen creeks.
"When I passed out," he says, "my dog would nudge me or sit on me to wake me up."
Eventually, the hunting guide made it back to his truck from the UTV. It took him more than 11 hours.
"I don't think I'd be talking to you now if that dog hadn't been there," Schmitt says. "I don't care how tough you are. Everyone wants to give up when it's excruciating, but he'd come over and make me feel good enough to get right back up."
