A Montana motorcyclist who had been missing for five days was found safe not far from where he went missing on Friday, ending a very active search.
A statement from the sheriff’s office says that at 1:42 on Friday afternoon, the International Emergency Response Coordination Center called the Idaho County Sheriff’s dispatch to report an SOS call from a Garmin inReach device.
The second message from Garmin said that 24-year-old Zachary DeMoss had been found but was badly hurt. When rescuers found DeMoss, they found that he had been drinking water from a creek.
DeMoss left Kooskia, Idaho, with friends Devlin Zarn and Aly Phan last week on a multistate Western bike trip. On Sunday, he didn’t show up and told them to get a head start on him.
People in the group say that DeMoss rides fast, “like a bat out of hell.” He is the most experienced rider in the group.
The sheriff’s office says that the SOS message sent on Friday gave the location of the Lost Creek Campground, which is located off of milepost 136 on Idaho Highway 12. The mile sign is close to where DeMoss’s bike was last seen, parked and without him on it.
Paramedics, Life Flight, a deputy, and state police were sent to the spot by dispatch.
When help arrived, they found DeMoss awake and alert. He was drinking water from a nearby creek to stay alive. It says that Life Flight took him to St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula.
The statement says, “Sheriff Doug Ulmer wants to thank everyone who helped look for Zachary and we wish him the best of luck with his recovery.”
The news that DeMoss had been found came just hours after the police said they would be narrowing their search for him.
“Really… Good”
The news made both Zarn and Phan very happy.
Phan laughed through tears on Friday and said, “We’re doing f***ng good.”
In Kalispell, Montana, she said she was getting into her truck, getting Zarn’s dog, and getting ready to go to the hospital in Missoula.
Phan didn’t know much, but he had heard that DeMoss had been found “a little beat up” by the river.
Zarn didn’t know everything either, like if DeMoss had crashed his motorbike or had some other accident.
He was happy, though, that his old school friend of 10 years was still alive. During the search, he said he hadn’t let himself think that DeMoss was dead.
Zarn laughed through tears and said, “I can’t stop crying.”
Zarn and Phan both said in their own talks how grateful they were to everyone who helped look for DeMoss.
In this bar
It was Sunday afternoon, and Phan, Zarn, and DeMoss were on their way back to Montana from Oregon. They stopped at Doreen’s Southfork Saloon in Kooskia, Idaho, to get some fresh air. People from the area hung out with them and had “maybe two beers.”
A plea on Phan’s Facebook page on Sunday for help finding DeMoss said that was the last time anyone had seen him or that his credit or bank card had been used.
He stayed at the bar longer than his friends and told them to get a head start on Idaho’s Highway 12 since he was the more experienced rider.
Since then, Phan said that the bar owner told her that DeMoss didn’t stay long after his friends went.
On the freeway, “He went by us pretty quickly,” Phan said. “He rides fast, like a bat out of hell.”
Around 4:30 that afternoon, Phan and Zarn saw DeMoss’s Vulcan pulled off the road on Eagle Mountain Trailhead. Phan’s post says that they waited for him at the next break for five minutes, but then they thought DeMoss hadn’t seen them and went back to the top of the trail.
DeMoss’s bike was gone, and they couldn’t see him when they got there.
Their back tire was getting thin and they thought he had turned around to find them, but Phan wrote that they were running low on gas. After waiting for two hours at the Eagle Mountain Trailhead, they left a big note in the dirt at the pullout and then went on their way to Lolo, Montana, as planned.
They sat at the Lolo Cenex gas station for more than an hour, waving at cars and bikers to see if anyone knew anything about DeMoss.
A friend of the two joined them and picked them up in his car so they could keep looking. Phan’s post says they didn’t see DeMoss or the bike crash.
As they looked for him all week, they went to his home in Victor, Montana, and called his phone.
