Utah hunter crawls 11 hours with broken bones, guided only by his dog’s collar light, after cliff crash

A Utah hunter has survived a harrowing ordeal after crawling through the night for more than 11 hours with multiple broken bones — guided only by the light on his dog’s collar — to save himself after a crash in the state’s rugged mountains.

Jacob “Jake” Schmitt was driving a side-by-side off-road vehicle in the Uinta Mountains on July 20 when it rolled down a cliff face, flipping repeatedly.

His dog Buddy, travelling in a kennel at the back, emerged unscathed.

The crash left Mr Schmitt with a broken leg, fractures in both ankles, broken ribs and extensive bruising. With no phone and no light of his own, he used Buddy’s collar as a guide and improvised a splint from a roll cage bar, duct tape and his belt.

“Immediately, I realised it was going over like a capsizing ship,” said Mr Schmitt.

“The machine flipped probably 15–20 times by the end of it, but I would say (to the) best of my recollection, probably the second or third flip is when it kind of sort of rag-dolled me out.”

People reported that when he came to, his dog was sitting beside him without a scratch.

“He was sort of just there staring at me … it’s unreal.”

From there, Mr Schmitt began the crawl back to his truck, dragging himself through the wilderness and stopping only to drink creek water alongside Buddy.

“Everybody wants to act tough, but I wanted to give up every time, all the time — but it’s like, either I die here, or I figure out how to keep going,” he said.

By daybreak, he had reached his vehicle and driven himself to the Oakley Diner, where he asked the staff to call 911.

He was airlifted to Park City Hospital, while firefighters cared for Buddy until the pair were reunited.

“A couple broken ribs on this side, a broken right ankle, I believe, left ankle, and then left tibia and fibula, and then about a bruise everywhere you can have it,” he said.

Mr Schmitt, originally from Buffalo, New York but now living in Ogden, has since been discharged and is recovering at home. A GoFundMe page set up by friends has raised more than $15,000 to cover medical expenses.

Looking back, he credits Buddy with keeping him alive.

“That little circle on his collar — I turned it on, and he would heel … We would drink water out of the creek together. I couldn’t have done it without him. It was like having your best friend there just to kind of nudge you like, ‘Keep going, keep going,’ you know.”