Bowie Student Trapped 8 Days Details Pain, Survival Tactics

By Avis Thomas-Lester
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 11, 2007; A01



As Julian McCormick recalls it, he lay in and out of consciousness for eight days and seven nights, hot, sticky and bloody with not a clue as to what day it was or how he ended up trapped in his overturned car at the bottom of a steep embankment in Prince George's County.

To survive, he ate a fish he caught with his hands and used his high-top sneaker to drink water from the creek, the 18-year-old Bowie State University student told his parents.

When he finally was able to muster the strength, he cut his seat belt using a small knife he had in his car, forced his door open and then dragged himself by his elbows, his body racked with pain, 30 feet up to the shoulder of the road hoping that someone would see him and rescue him. Someone did.

"We've got him back, and we are so glad!" his ecstatic mother said yesterday in an interview. "He's doing great."

As their son recovered at Washington Hospital Center yesterday, Peggy and James McCormick tried to piece together the circumstances of their son's disappearance and recovery and questioned why police had not done more to search for him. They said doctors have told them that their son's injuries are consistent with someone who had been exposed to the elements for days without food or water.

But what had happened to the Laurel teenager? Why did his Honda Civic leave the roadway and land in a creek bed that runs under the road where he was found, near the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center? And why did police wait days to look for McCormick and then conduct just a 1 1/2 -hour search -- at night, when visibility was limited?

Sgt. Robert Lachance of the U.S. Park Police, which is investigating the accident because it occurred on federal land, said investigators were waiting to interview McCormick, who was sedated yesterday. He was in fair condition and being treated for malnutrition, dehydration, abrasions and an injured hip.

"We really don't want to ask him too much about what happened," James McCormick said. "The doctors predict that he will be 100 percent healed. . . . We're just trying to be there for him."

Mark Brady, a spokesman for Prince George's County fire and rescue, said McCormick's injuries were similar to those of a person who had been trapped in a car.

The McCormicks reported their son missing Sept. 1, a few hours after he left a band practice at Bowie State on his way to the University of Maryland at College Park, where he was meeting his girlfriend but never showed.

His parents and friends posted fliers and searched for him around Bowie State. His girlfriend, Flor Orellana-Diaz, called his cellphone 127 times.

Police categorized McCormick as a "non-critical missing person" because there were no signs of foul play.

They conducted an aerial search for him Friday night from 9 to 10:30 -- well after dark, according to the helicopter squad's aviation log. He was discovered by a motorist Saturday evening.

"I don't think it was a priority," Peggy McCormick said.

Added James McCormick: "He's been there the whole time, less than one mile from home."

According to his parents, Julian McCormick was on Powder Mill Road near the on-ramp to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway when he lost control of his car. It ran off the road and down the steep ravine.

He told his parents that he was not sure how long he was unconscious in the car. He woke to find his seat belt strapped across his chest and his breathing labored. After he cut the seat belt, his parents said, he waited to be rescued. James McCormick said it took more than a week for his son to get his driver's-side door open and get out. The McCormicks said their son was able to keep time on his watch, but the days got away from him and he could not use his cellphone because its battery was dead. The McCormicks also said their son does not recall how the accident occurred.

Julian McCormick told them the car was upside down in the ravine and that at first, he couldn't get out.

His mother said he told her that he was able to get to the creek for some water.

"He told me, 'Thank God for these size 13 shoes, Mom, because I was able to drink out of them.' "

Her son managed to tell her that he was very hungry so he grabbed a fish and ate it. He felt he needed to eat to survive, his mother said.

"He said: 'Mom, I just knew I had to see you again. Mom, I was so afraid that I was going to die,' " she recounted.

It wasn't until days after he landed in the ravine, Peggy McCormick said, that her son was able to drag himself up to the road. He doesn't know how long it took to climb the 30-foot embankment. His timing was good, though: Just before 6 p.m. Saturday, Leigh Ann Hess, who was riding in a car with her mother, noticed the soaking wet and muddy teenager lying on the side of the road, wiggling his fingers in an attempt to flag down help.

She jumped out to help him, and about a half-dozen other drivers eventually stopped. Rescue workers arrived within minutes. He was able to give his name and address but didn't know what day it was.

McCormick's survival story, remarkable as it is, is similar to others told across the country: the 83-year-old Florida woman who survived three days while her car was suspended in mangrove trees in a swamp, an elderly San Jose couple who were in a steep ravine for four days before they were rescued.

Doctors say survival depends on many factors, including age, the weather and access to water. People react to dehydration differently, depending on their health and physical condition, and usually they can survive days, even weeks, without food, said Eric Glasser, assistant chief of service for the emergency department at Georgetown University Hospital.

Family members said yesterday that they did not know when Julian McCormick would be released from the hospital.

"He's got no breaks or fractures, no internal injuries," his mother said. "If something had happened and he'd had internal injuries, they would have found the car, but he would have been gone. God was with him."

Staff writer Jenna Johnson and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.