This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I just wanted to tell you that this is a whole new game for us. it's nice to
see familiar faces in the media. A rapport and a friendship goes a long way
for us. helps kinda settle us down through this whole process. In our
inexperience it's been difficult for us to be able to determine how to best
approach this. We have sincerely appreciated the influence and affect the
resources that have been mustered to.
Jody
We have not been trying to avoid you. We laid in bed this morning trying to
figure out what to do. we have no experience with the media. we weren't
avoiding you. we appreciated, we thank you though.
Toby
I guess that probably what we'd like to do is thank everybody. we want to
celebrate this. what a remarkable finish and conclusion to this whole
experience. You go form incredible worry and concern wondering what you
could have done better what you should have done in the beginning. Then you
go through the search process of not getting any clues and running into dead
ends. And then in just an instance, the flip of a switch you go to
incredible exhilaration and gratitude and appreciation for everybody's
efforts that were directed and that ultimately resulted in the successful
rescue of Brennan.
We understand that this is fairly common. It's going to take a little while
to get everything out.
Jody
This is how he approaches every situation whether he went to the amusement
park or whether, he doesn't' have great communication about events that are
going on in his life. His personality has not changed one tiny bit. He was
cracking jokes from within 20 to 30 seconds. His little funny quirky sense
of humor was right on.
Toby
I thought it was funny, after everything settled down yesterday from the
rescue, he said mom, did my Pokemon cards arrive?
Jody
he ordered them on ebay last week and I tell you that's what got him off
that mountain. He gets very riveted on something and everyday he checked the
mail for them. He asked for them first thing in the hospital, "Did my
Pokemon cards come yet?" And that's his little personality.
Toby
And those things kinda gave us an indication that everything was alright.
One thing that I thought was kinda interesting through the whole process,
once we found and out discovered that he was OK they had evaluated his
medical condition They do that on an alpha basis, A being like we are,
feeling fine, responsive, ready to go. And F being perished, their immediate
assessment was that he was a C. And then they quickly went to an a, after
the EMT had done a quick evaluation right there on the trail. so he's doing
remarkably well. I think that going to he hospital was probably a
precautionary thing more than anything else. They hydrated him. And once
again, Brennan continues to amaze me His ability to deal with this.
Initially I made a comment, that I thought he was the most ill prepared to
deal with this out of our five children. and now I think he really was maybe
the best prepared.
Question: Can you tell us a little bit about him that allowed him to
survive?
Jody
he gets very focused on something. what we've ascertained is he had two
thoughts going through his head all the time: Toby has always told him if
you get lost, stay on the trail so he stayed on the trail We've also told
him don't' talk to strangers. He stayed on the trail When an ATV or horse
went by, he got off the trail and so, Brennan does focus on things. He kept
those two thoughts on his mind, stay on the trail and don't talk to
strangers, which that doesn't' make any sense at all, but to him, that's how
is brain thinks, these are the things I'm supposed to do, this is what I'm
going to do.
Where he was was mostly horses and ATVs. They were up so high in the country
that it was difficult for a lot of people on foot, we don't know how many,
but we do know that he saw ATVs and horses. His biggest fear he told me was
that someone would steal him. I asked him, cold, hunger, he said, "I didn't
want someone to steal me."
He got in midget mode is what he calls it. He perches, he gets on top of our
bar stools, he pulls his shirt over his knees, that's what he does. He said
I was freezing, I got in midget mode. I asked him how many nights he thought
he was gone, he said, "one or two." It's a blur to him at this point.
Question: Where were you guys and and what did you do and what was your
first reaction when you heard the news that he was alright?
Toby
my experience actually was pretty interesting. I was staged on a search that
was in the river area. And I was working with Sean who is part of the Summit
County Search and Rescue. As we were working our way systematically in a
grid pattern trying to eliminate this area, I kinda noticed that Sean broke
back into, he kinda atypically dropped back. So I just kept on searching and
all of a sudden, he popped up out of the willows and said, "Toby, I need to
talk to you." And so I drifted back and I just thought that you know, we'd
been running into so many dead ends that it might have been something that
was media related or Jody wanted to talk to me or something. But then he got
caught up on the radio and he said, "We need to get you to a road and a
vehicle for transportation." I said, "That's great," of course there's a lot
of media around and I didn't' want that to interfere with the search process
so lets stay in the field until we know for sure which truck we're getting.
He got back on the radio with communications and Cindy with Summit County
Search and Rescue was going to come and I said, Sean, you've got to tell me
what I'm dealing with here. I said, "talk to me goose," and he said, " If
everything that I'm hearing on the radio is accurate, they have found
Brennan,"
My first response was, "They've found him?"
And he said "Yes."
He said, "This is all preliminary, there's a possibility that this is not
accurate information. " But then he said, "If everything on the radio is
accurate, he's been found." And then my first question was, "Is he alive?"
He said "He's alive." I said, "What is his condition?" And they said "Good.
He's reasonably in good condition from what they're able to ascertain."
Question: What was the first thing he said to you?
Um, Brennan. . .I remember him saying him mom,
Jody
He read Mariah's shirt that said, "No peeking till Christmas."
Toby
That's right.
Jody
I have the best family in the world, Those are the things I remember him
saying right away.
He sees words and he reads them,
Question: Can you share with us your reaction when you first saw him?
Jody
Oh, mine was much different than Toby's. I was down in the camp surrounded
by a lot of volunteers, it came over my radio, it said, Jody, get away from
the crowd. I didn't know what that meant. They said, "Go by yourself. Go on
the road and get away from the crowd." I said, "Family too?" And they said
"Yes."
You've been to the site, you can't get away from he crowd. They said, "We're
going to bring the Sheriff down for you." It seemed like a really long time
before the Sheriff got there and I was trying to get up to where they were,
and I didn't know anything, I, (pause), I'm sorry. (pause) I at that point,
didn't think that Brennan was still with us. I never felt that he was
abducted, or that he was in harm's way. I felt at peace with the situation.
But at that point I really didn't think he could survive that long in the
wilderness. And so when I was going to get into the Sheriff's car, I knew
they were going to tell me that Brennan was no longer with me and I
collapsed before I could get into the truck, and then they put me into the
truck and they told me that Brennan was still alive and that he was in good
shape. My brain still can't comprehend that. You know, we talk about it, up
there wasn't real. This isn't real and it's going to take some time to
process this event in our heads.
Question: Did he tell you how it started?
Jody
He doesn't remember even going camping.
Question: When you say you thought he might have been dead, is that
something you verbalized and spoke to each other about?
Jody
Uh huh. We talked about that.
Question:
And what were your thoughts about that.
Toby
We've talked a lot about our faith. We believe that families are eternal. We
find great solace in that. With Jody's firm impression that he was not
experiencing pain and going through something that obviously no parent would
want a child to go through, uh, we felt that whatever the result was that
our faith would help us get through it.
Jody
We're learned through this situation that there's worse things than death.
There really are. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a child
and we just felt peace knowing that he was safe, wherever that was.
Question: Does he remember eating or drinking anything?
Jody
No. I asked him if he drank stream or river water and he want "ugh."
Toby
but we know for sure, from the physical condition that he did drink and I
think that will probably come out through time.
Jody
His electrolytes were normal.
Question: What did he want to do first when he got home?
Jody
He wanted to see one of his buddies and he's been sleeping a lot. He's
exhausted.
Question: We heard that he wanted to do a sleepover. . .
Jody
It's a family thing. We don't do sleepovers with our children. We don't' let
our children go out and have sleepovers anyway.
Question: Tell us of that first embrace after four days.
Toby
We were really excited. It took a long time for the rescue flight to get to
us and actually the AirMed couldn't get to him and they ended up having an
ATV go up to the rescue site and then we ended up grouping up as a family
and then we ended up heading down the trail to a landing zone. And then, we
had the ATV come in our direction, immediately, the things I can remember is
they tried to shield us from the sun with the blankets over the top of us .
Brennan was in the ATV and we embraced and he was lethargic.
Jody
But talking. I couldn't' believe he was talking.
Toby
Yeah, he was talking and it was . . it was just. . . it was like a dream. It
was just like a dream. It was just such a happy moment.
Question: You said that he was born quite a bit premature.
Jody
He was.
Question: Has he been a survivor from the start?
Jody
Absolutely.
Question: Has that caused challenges for him in life in his abilities?
Jody
It has. Yes. And he's a survivor. Whatever happens he overcomes them and he
just keeps going. He taught us from the middle of the pregnancy until today.
Everything has been a teaching.
Toby
Challenges can be defined in different terms. Brennan has the capacity to do
anything and everything that he wants. The affects of being born premature
have affected his social maturity. Everyone of us are on a tangent of
growing up you know and Brennan probably being an 11 year old boy acts a
little bit younger. But he doesn't have, you know, he's not retarded. He
doesn't have any mental disabilities he's just immature.
Question: You mentioned earlier that he did not respond to searchers. That
he's shy . .
Toby
And that's a great comment and something that as we've viewed the whole
situation, we think that it's absolutely critical for parents to understand
now that there's two basic lessons that need to be taught. One of them is
stranger danger, um, run, scream, get out of there, have a password for your
family. I think everybody knows our password is BYU. We're Cougar fans but
that'll be changed and I've been encouraged to make that Utah. And I keep
telling my friend Mike that obviously isn't going to happen.
But the other side of it is the rescue side, and this may have come to a
much faster conclusion had we talked more with Brennan about that.
Jody
Nobody thinks this is going to happen to their child. Not one of you out
there really believes it's going to happen to your child. We still don't
believe it's going to happen. There's nothing in your brain to process that
kind of information. So we never go beyond don't talk to strangers. And the
likelihood of getting struck by lightening is probably a whole lot greater
but really, children need to be taught, if you're missing, and I don't know
how to teach children that, you know, at some point, if people try to find
you. . .
Toby
I've thought about that, I think that what I'm going to do with my kids now
is we're going to get out, anybody who spends any time outside, there's the
potential of being lost, and most people who spend time outside. . . I've
been lost. I had a horrible experience on an elk hunt once, I was lost for
four hours and I kinda talked to Brennan a little bit about that and
empathized with him and I told him that on one small level I've had that
experience. But I would like to get our children out and we'll just go
through that whole scenario and I think that will make enough of an imprint
if we do it two or three times and create the scenario and let them know
what resources are going to be.
Jody
Because they do remember the rest that they're taught.
Toby
Yeah, they remember. That's the beautiful part that Brennan was just rock
solid in everything that he'd been taught, ya' know. He was on a trail he
stayed away from strangers. He know that it would be bad if he was taken by
a stranger all these things, he responded like a champ.
Question: (can't hear)
Jody
He didn't process information. He know two things: stay on the trail and
stay away from strangers.
Question: What does he think about all of these cameras?
Jody
He loves watching it which is hilarious, he goes, his picture will come on
and he goes, "Sweet." I was just funny. I don't' think he can connect all
of this to what's going on on TV but last night, one of the first things
that we did he says, people know me? And I said, Yeah, Brennan. People do
know you.
Question: Anything he wanted to convey through you guys to the community?
Toby
We didn't' talk specifically about that, I'm sure that once he gets a handle
on it that he would want to thank everybody.
Question: What does he think of this in your front yard.
Toby
Brennan's still asleep. Brennan fell asleep about 7:30 last night and he's
still asleep.
Question: Have you talked to the man who actually found him.
Jody
I didn't.
Toby
I did. I gave Forest I believe is his name. I have him a big hug and just
expressed my appreciation. He felt like he was led and directed. It was his
first day on the search operation.
Jody
Most of those guys were on their first day. They thought, this is where we
need to go and they were not actually where they were assigned. They got
lost. I don't know if you knew that or not. There were assigned to a
different quadrant and they were lost, I don't' know if I should say that or
not, they were on a different trail and that's when they found him.
Question: Anything you'd like to say to the searchers?
Jody
Oh we' love you. And it's not just those people, it's every single person up
there which made that search smaller and smaller and smaller. It was every
single person up there.
Toby
It was a symphony of events.
Question: Have you been able to reconstruct any part of his path?
Jody
Yes, the guy that he was with last night went through the scenario and his
philosophy or theory I think is spot on.
Question: Who was that?
Jody
Martin Christiansen
Toby
Martin is a friend of the family. He was the father of the family that
Brennan went up with.
Question: Can you explain any of this long four day journey that Brennan
took?
Jody
No.
Toby
That's the part that, we don't want to pressure Brennan, or force him to, we
just think that time needs to run its course and I wish we had more answers,
ya' know?
Question: What was the first that he did when he got home?
Toby
First thing that happened is that he came in and gave a big hug to Taylor
when he got home last night and Taylor said, "Man where were ya', ya' know?"
Brennan just kind of gave him a blank stare and I don't' think he has the
ability right now to start at the beginning of the path and go to the end.
And thank heavens, I think that helped him through the whole process.
Question:
Did campers say that he was OK that day on the climbing wall? He did all
right? Not in any kind of emotional state or anything?
Toby
He went up a little higher than ... He doesn't like heights. But it wasn't
anything out of the ordinary.
Question:
Not to relive the bad parts ... but was there a moment when you lost hope,
do you remember a time, an event that caused you to think we're not going to
find him?
Toby
I don't remember an event but I remember in the searching process I remember
that when we hit the 72-hour mark I was searching with Dirk Brock Hill, just
an incredible guy on the search and rescue -- taught me an awful lot about
that process and that -- but, I looked up at him, I looked at my watch. It
was 5:30. It must have been Monday evening, and I said, "Dirk we just hit
the 72-hour mark." You know as much as you don't want to have anything like
that happen, we all knew the reality of 72 hours. I guess that if I were to
talk to somebody else that was faced with this parents and anybody else ...
You just can never, absolutely never, lose hope. You can remember my first
comments that I made, you know, about Brennan being unprepared and stuff.
But somehow or another he drew some courage, some determination. And he had
the ability to survive. I've told Brennan, I said, "Brennan, you know what,
I don't know how many 11-year-old boys could survive what you went through."
You know, and it's remarkable that he had the ability to deal with it.
question
unintelligible
Jody
It is. It is. And you guys know one piece of this miracle. There are as many
tiny miracles that went through this as there is the fact that he's home
alive, and that's what ... It would take days ... In fact, the rain started
half an hour after he was found. I mean just on and on and on. Brennan told
us that the first thing he did, the only thing he's actually been able to
tell us, a detail, he told you ...
Toby
Well, I talked to Brennan, and it was kind of a quiet moment together when I
was talking to him about me being lost and stuff because I was trying to
milk it out of him. I want to know what he did. And I said, "Brennan, did
you go uphill or down hill?" I said, "Son, the first night that we went in
to rescue, we went downhill with flashlights and we thought that's the
direction you would have gone." And he ... I said, "Did you go uphill?" And
he said, "Yes." And then I said, "Once you realized that you were lost what
did you do?" And he paused for a minute and he said, "Let me think." And
then he said that he said a prayer. And I said, I said to Brennan, "Do you
know what Brennan? Heavenly Father has taken care of you."
Jody
And he knows that. He's told us that.
Toby
And your prayers and our prayers and everybody's prayers have brought us
back together. And we believe that. My wife said unequivocally yesterday in
a brief statement, "We do believe that God had his hand in everything that
took place and transpired." I think as a world we need to understand that
there is a god. I think that we need to be rooted in these fundamental
principles and the teachings that the Savior taught of love and of service.
And when you start working with the search and rescue guys and those sheriff
people ... once you get past that tough exterior, these people are based in
taking care of and loving people. They serve and they receive an incredible
amount of gratification by helping people. And now wouldn't that be a better
world if we were all that way.
Jody
Most of them aren't even compensated.
dad
That's the incredible part. One of the guys in the search and rescue ...
Jody
...none of them are compensated
Toby
Yeah. They're not compensated. They did say it was a 40-hour initial push to
be able to, understanding that time was of the essence ... They surrender
everything really: their livelihood and that. And it was just absolutely
incredible and inspirational to see what they were willing to do.
question
Has anyone recommended that he might need counseling?
Jody
We have a family friend whose a therapist, and we talked about it. We're
definitely going to do everything, and not just for him, but for all of our
children.
question
But everything's OK for now?
Jody
For now.
question
Emotionally as well?
Jody, dad
Yeah
question
Unintelligible
Jody
We got about four hours of sleep again last night, and they're all sound
asleep. They're so relieved, and we're going to make sure that they're ...
They've all been through an incredibly traumatic experience, too, and it's
going to take a long time for their brains to process this information.
question
How did Kevin Bardsley help you guys?
Toby
I had a chance to talk with Kevin last night. As I was running up the hill
to get into the truck to go over to the recovery and rescue Brennan, the
first things that went through my mind, honest, were how can i talk to Kevin
and Heidi. And I talked to Kevin. And I said, "Kevin, I really cannot" ...
I'm not eloquent enough to be able to express to him the gratitude that we
have for everything that he did. His resources and the experience that they
went through with Garrett and being able to ... Now we have proven, I hope,
for search and rescue, law enforcement and everybody that volunteers can
work in tandem with the professionals to be able to have a successful
result. And all that comes because of Kevin and the numerous people that
were involved. I know that Kevin would want to spread around, you know, the
gratitude and the compliments to everybody who's worked so hard. Gary, his
team captain, I don't know what their titles are. Gary was just rock solid.
Kevin came into the operation in the very beginning, and my heart goes out
to the Bardsley family. We love them. They're kindred spirits. And I can
assure you, I'll be up there helping them search for Garrett.
Jody
And that's what we want to take this from here. We are fine. We want to take
this and move forward and find Garrett and every other child.
Toby
Well, yeah, there really is a bigger agenda because, you know what, we would
like to encourage everybody to do is ... When you get into this situation,
the resources are so small, you know, and everybody knows that money brings
capabilities and it brings technology and it brings all this information to
be able to help then. And we'd like to encourage people to contribute to
[http://www.findinggarrett.org], so that we can muster the resources to do
this faster. And I think that that's what the Bardsley family would like to
have happen. I think they want the next search to be faster. We'd love to
get to a point where any parent that has this experience can capitalize upon
the resources of
a local and a national ability to respond and just take it and run and
hopefully it's an hour.
question
Is Brennan allowed to go on another hike?
Jody
He won't be going by him ... He wouldn't want to.
Toby
You know what? Right now that probably won't happen. But that's our
lifestyle, and we love it. And I hope he can get back up on the horse, quite
frankly.
question
Unintelligible
Toby
Definitely. There was never any question about the confidence and capability
of the Boy Scouts of America.
Jody
There wasn't.
Toby
Never.
Jody
And the fact that it happened in that camp, where we had commissaries and
rest rooms and open fields and people there ... I mean if it had to happen,
it couldn't have been a more convenient location. That's what the Bardsley's
didn't have is a convenient location for parking, for media, for TVs, for
horses, for commissaries, for command posts. And we had all of that. It's
like it was set up for that kind of a thing.
Toby
If we didn't have their confidence, their expertise and their willingness to
help us out, you know, we probably wouldn't be here right now. We'd still be
searching.
question
Do you see yourselves maybe getting involved in helping other people?
Jody
Oh, absolutely.
dad
No question. We're not too worried about the limelight, you know, so we
would like to be involved in it. There's great peace that comes from people
that know from past experience what this is all about.
question
unintelligible
Jody
More of what I understand, it was kind of a muddy trail and it was easy
to... just mud puddles. It wasn't wet like a river wet. It was a wet like
falling into a puddle wet. I don't think that happened before dark.
question
He doesn't remember anything else then?
Toby
No. He hasn't told us anything about the water. We do know that he drank. I
mean he started drinking at the time that he was on the trailhead. We do
running and stuff, and even in the most difficult run, sometimes my system
doesn't start working for another four hours. I know that's a little
personal, but it will give you a little insight to ... Brennan was back on
that path, you know. Brennan, his system was working within four hours.
Jody
He was definitely dehydrated. Definitely.
Toby
He's...
Jody
Hungry.
Toby
Hungry and he's (unintelligible)
question
What meal are you going to cook him?
Jody
Whatever he wants.
question
unintelligible
Toby
We don't know.
Jody
Actually, we're going in to see how he feels. I want to be there when he
wakes up. That's kind of our first concern today. We just want to thank you,
though. We truly want to thank you. I know you guys have been here very
early, very late. And we appreciate it. As far as we know, we'll you again
this afternoon.
Toby
I wanted to be a little bit more definitive in the people that we thank.
Obviously, we're grateful for the power and influence of our immediate
family. Our children have just been awesome in this whole thing. Our
extended family, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas. They've just been
wonderful. We have a close nucleus of friends, and we want to thank them.
They know who they are. Their support was absolutely remarkable. We wanted
to thank the countless volunteers, the people that at a glance we knew and
those who could care less about the recognition. Those are the ones who I
think really inspired us. They come and drop off gifts, things that would
help out in the search and take off. They didn't want a pat on the back or
anything. They're just incredible. We wanted to thank the Summit County
search and rescue group. These guys are awesome. We never ever ever
questioned their ability to be able do this. The competency, and maybe in
one of the interviews I can tell you a little bit abut the history of how
the Summit County search and rescue got started with four men who were
instrumental in the rescue of Brennan. We wanted to thank the sheriff's
department for their professionalism and their experience.
Jody
And their humanism. and that's what I kept thinking ... If this had been a
big city I just don't know ... We never left the debriefing without human
feeling (unintelligible) every single man there. The emotion was incredible.
It wasn't for any gain except for to bring Brennan home.
Toby
The dog teams, the swift water rescue. Obviously, we talked about Kevin
Bardsley and his group, Heidi, his family. They were awesome in consoling us
and giving us the assistance that we needed. And everybody else. You guys.
The media played a critical role in mustering on that second day near 3,000
to be able to get there and search.
Jody
The fact that the people that found him, almost all of them it was
first-day search is a contribution to you guys because three days into it,
you were still bringing people out for it. ... Thank yo