After being found alive Tuesday night, Allen James Hendrickson was arrested on an outstanding District Court bench warrant charging him with failure to appear at a child support hearing. Photo: Sweetwater County Detention Center
Two Rock Springs men stranded in the remote back country of eastern Sweetwater County were rescued by searchers Tuesday night.
The Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office mounted a search beginning Tuesday morning in the area generally southwest of Wamsutter when Allen James Hendrickson, 28, and Sean T. Jereb, 27, were reported overdue from a rabbit hunt outing, according to a release from the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Mike Lowell said the two men left Rock Springs in a grey 2007 Ford Focus on Sunday afternoon and had not been heard from since. Concerned family and friends contacted authorities on Tuesday morning.
Tuesday’s search focused on the location of the last coordinates obtained from Hendrickson’s cellular telephone in the area of The Haystacks, southwest of Wamsutter and east of the
Fort LaClede ruins on the old Overland Stage Trail.
Lowell said agencies and resources involved in the search operation encompassed the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, Sweetwater Search & Rescue, the Sweetwater Emergency Management Agency, the Civil Air Patrol, and the Wyoming Department of Homeland Security.
Searchers on the ground from the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office, including Deputy Sheriff Jerry Glasscock and Sweetwater Search & Rescue volunteers Joyce Fett, Steve Garris, Chris Schutz, Steve Rich, and Drake Graham were joined by motor grader crews from Basic Energy Services and Terry R. Pitt Construction. Dean Luthi of Search & Rescue coordinated search communications.
Search teams worked their way down the Barrel Springs Road and west along the Eureka Headquarters Road under extreme snow conditions for some five hours and found the unoccupied Ford Focus at 8:30 PM about 20 miles southwest of Wamsutter. Footprints were found headed west from the vehicle, but were lost after several miles.
While Brandon Calahan of Terry R. Pitt Construction continued clearing the road with his grader, Pitt supervisor Troy Householder checked a well site in the area, reacquired the missing men’s footprints, and followed them to a dehy building along the road four miles west of the car, where he found Jereb and Hendrickson. The pair had sheltered in the building, which contained residual heat generated by machinery.
Lowell said a search aircraft flying out of Cheyenne was on its way to the search area when the two men were found, and was recalled.
Both men were unharmed, as was the dog that accompanied them.
The story did not have an entirely happy ending for Allen Hendrickson, though . After the two were transported out of the area, he was arrested on an outstanding District Court bench warrant charging him with failure to appear at a child support hearing.