U{DATE: Volunteers from the nonprofit 775 Offroad & Recovery successfully retrieved a 1987 Suzuki Samurai from the Nevada desert on Wednesday morning.
A local couple is sharing how they survived the Nevada desert after being reported missing for three days.
You may remember a report when they first went missing on Friday night and had already been gone for over 36 hours prior. The next day, Reno police reported they had finally been found.
Bonnie and Randy Bernal left their home to check out an abandoned mine at Sand Pass. After spending several hours driving around, they say the dirt road they were following washed away.
Bonnie says, “We were never lost, we had a map, never lost. We had a map, we were prepared, we knew where we were going; but we didn’t know that the road we were on had washed away and turned into playa.”
Unfortunately, the Bernals found themselves completely stuck in the wet playa. Bonnie says they didn’t tell anyone where they were going before leaving, and there was no cell service to call 911. By this time, it was getting pretty late, so they decided to stay the night in their car.
The next day they started to head towards the nearest town, Gerlach, on foot with their dog Greta. The Bernals say they walked about 20 miles in the rain figuring out which way to go before they had set camp again.
Bonnie tells us thanks to the dog blanket they brought, they managed to keep warm in the night.
“That dog blanket I had – it was weird – it was like wool on one side, so the water retained in the wool but didn’t get on us. It was just a blanket I got for the dog at Walmart.”
The next morning, they found a house where the owner drove them into Gerlach, and they got the help they needed.
Their advice to everyone: Be prepared for anything, and always let someone know where you’re going.
