WATCH: Twenty-three-year-old Duncan Moffat was found in his truck by a hunter Tuesday afternoon. Moffat had spent roughly five days trapped with serious injuries.
Family and friends of 23-year-old Duncan Moffat had been searching for him for over a week when on Tuesday afternoon they were told he had been found trapped in a truck down a steep embankment south of Sayward.
“Oh there was tears and elation, everyone was quite happy to find him that he was safe. Well safe might not be the word but he was alive is probably the proper way to put it.” said his uncle Bill MacNab.
According to family, Moffat went missing around Saturday, Nov. 3. He’d taken his dad’s truck in Sayward, then was spotted in Campbell River on Monday, Nov. 5. After that, he had not been seen at all.
“You know give him a day or two variance on that and we figure he’s been in there close to five days and the reports back from my sister who is with him in Victoria is that he has said the same, that he was in there for five days,” added MacNab.
It was a hunter who saved the day and maybe Moffat’s life when he found Moffat still trapped in the pickup truck Tuesday afternoon.
“And thank goodness he was out there.” said his grandmother June MacNab. “If he hadn’t of found him, he probably would have died in the truck of exposure and his injuries.”
Firefighters from Campbell River raced to the scene over 60 kilometres away to help Moffat.
“At that point they had to get some hydraulic rescue tools down and cut the car apart so as I understand it they cut the A post, the B post, took the door off and then got a basket stretcher and some other extrication equipment and packaged the patient up and then using ropes got him back up to the highway,” said Campbell River Fire Deputy Chief Kelly Bellefleur.
Moffat was eventually flown to a hospital in Victoria with a broken leg and serious internal injuries.
“Our sincere and heartfelt thanks to all the people who attended and did their part rescuing and taking him to the hospital,” said Bill MacNab.
His family says he was able to sustain himself by eating apples he’d recently picked in his father’s backyard.
“He was supposed to get rid of them but he didn’t, so luckily he hadn’t, luckily they were there for him when he needed them,” said June MacNab.
Dean Stoltz
