Dad and Son Find ‘Help’ Scrawled in Dirt Road and Lead Cops to Missing Girl

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More than 60 search-and-rescue teams had been trying to find a missing teen until one father and son chanced upon the word “help” written on the ground.

Kathryn “Katie” Ogle, of Hayden, Idaho, was reported missing on Nov. 1, 2018. The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office wrote on their Facebook post that the 19-year-old girl is known to have “multiple medical alerts and the cognitive ability of an approximate 10-12 year old.”

Two days later, on Nov. 3, Ryle Gordon and his dad, Chris Trumbich, were out for a hunting trip when they spotted a message on the ground. Upon seeing the word “HELP,” Gordon recalled the Facebook post about the missing teen.

“You could see that somebody wrote ‘Help’ in the road with a stick and mud,” 15-year-old Gordon told KREM. “Me and my (step)dad kind of panicked.”

Trumbich and Gordon then quickly alerted the command center set up about 4 miles from the place they had seen the “Help” mark, reported KREM.

“The ambulance followed us up there,” Gordon said. “They heard somebody saying something, so we all got really quiet, and then one of them yelled, ‘Hello.’ She said, ‘Help.’ She was right there by a small fire and leaning up against a tree.”

The family has a cabin in the wooded area, which is not far from where Ogle was found. They later learned that it was Ogle who had been to their cabin, opened a can of nuts, and even taken one of their sleeping bags.

The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office later issued an update on Ogle’s condition that she is in “relatively good condition and is being cared for by medical personnel on scene,” ABC News reported.

Thanks to the father and son for staying alert and helping to find the girl.

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