This story is about neighbors helping neighbors – and lives forever changed.
David Roosth knew right off that something was wrong when he listened to the voicemail left by neighbor Bill Carroll, who told him he had a flat tire and was stuck in the snow and would be crossing Roosth’s property on the walk home.
“It was strange that he would be walking where he got his car stuck, not being a direct route home to where we live,” Roosth said. “It’s like he took a wrong turn. He was disoriented for whatever reason. He couldn’t drive to his house from the way he went. I was like something is wrong, because he didn’t know where he is or something. It just didn’t make sense.”
It was just after 11 a.m. on April 20.
Roosth, who was at work, called Carroll back but didn’t get an answer, so he called another neighbor, Alex Hostiuck, who just happened to be home in the Morning Star Ranches area of Rafter J subdivision, southwest of Durango, where the three men share adjoining properties.
Roosth told him about Carroll’s message and asked if Hostiuck could ride his four-wheeler down the backside of Roosth’s property to see if Carroll was walking and needed a ride.
“He said they had the sheriff out looking for him and could I go and see if I could find Bill,” Hostiuck recalled. “I didn’t really know where he was and there’s probably a couple hundred acres between (U.S. Highway) 160 and our neighborhood.”
But Roosth’s description gave Hostiuck a general direction, so he grabbed a couple of bottles of water and set off toward roads’ end on Roosth’s property.
“I drove the four-wheeler down as far as I could get and then hopped off and started on foot and I basically walked right to him, and that is the most amazing thing to me,” Hostiuck said. “There was really no searching. I just drove right to him and I can’t explain that. I don’t know what to say other than it was the strangest part to me.
“There’s so much space out there and how I just happened directly upon him I will never know, but I think there was something that drew us together that day and I was where I needed to be,” Hostiuck continued. “And he definitely needed some help.”
Carroll was lying in a ditch, half in the snow and half in the runoff water. He was unresponsive, his eyes open wide and fixed on the sky. The only sign of life a slight twitching of his lips. Hostiuck called 911 and tried to describe his location.
But there had been some sort of confusion; the operator told him the sheriff had already been out and that Carroll was OK and walking home. Hostiuck explained that wasn’t the case and that they needed to send an ambulance.
Hostiuck prepared to perform CPR because no matter what he tried he got no response from Carroll. He dragged his body out of the water and into the sunlight.
“It was kind of freaking me out,” he said. “I figured I need to do something. I can’t just sit here with him like this because it’s starting to scare me.”
Hostiuck poured water on Carroll’s lips and his hands, which were beat-up and chapped, he figures because Carroll had been out in the elements for a couple of hours. He rubbed Carroll’s torso vigorously in an effort to warm him. And in a last-ditch effort before starting CPR, he yelled in Carroll’s face and shook him a bit.
And that is when Carroll blinked. It had been 20 to 30 minutes since Hostiuck had found him. Carroll’s breathing suddenly improved and he began making incoherent noises. Hostiuck called 911 again to see where they were because he figured there was no way they would find the men 600 feet of elevation down the ravine.
Hostiuck helped Carroll to his feet but the man couldn’t walk.
“It was like jiggling a wire and the light would come on for a minute and he would boot up for a second,” Hostiuck said. “And he said my name and ‘Oh hey, how’s it going? I wrecked my car.’ And he described his car and I was really thankful.”
But Carroll couldn’t put one foot in front of the other to get up the hill to the four-wheeler.
“It’s like he’d just freeze up and his eyes would go kind of blank again and he’d space out.”
Hostiuck managed to drag him up the hill and get him into the kid’s seat he has on the back of the four-wheeler.
“And then he kind of came around again and was aware and able to talk,” Hostiuck said.
Hostiuck drove back to the end of the road just as the ambulance crew arrived. He helped them load Carroll and off they went. It was just past 1 p.m.
Carroll survived but remains in the hospital in Grand Junction, said his daughter Melissa Bryant, who went to him from her home in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, Carroll’s prognosis isn’t good.
“It’s kind of a tragic thing,” she said. “It’s not good. He had just been diagnosed with cancer, melanoma, but not the kind from your skin. And he had no idea. I don’t know exactly how it works but by the time he found out, it had already spread to his lungs and brain.
“And there’s four tumors the size of lemons,” Bryant continued. “And that’s what caused the psychosis, was the pressure on his brain. And he started having little seizures. So yeah, he went from kind of being a little bit manic and not himself to just bonkers, for lack of a better word.”
The cancer is not treatable and doctors have given Carroll three months to live. He is now happily confused, which may or may not be a blessing, Bryant said. She and her brother, who lives in Arkansas, will now decide whether he will go to a local memory care facility or more likely – stay somewhere close to them.
Bryant hasn’t spoken with Roosth but she’s talked with Hostiuck quite a bit.
“It was just meant to happen the way that it did,” she said. “I mean, it was just a God thing. It really was. It put him in the right place at the right time with the right intuitions.”
She said her father and Hostiuck had bonded in the past, both being engineers and engineer-minded.
“And you know, engineers are a bit different, they’re different birds,” Bryant said. “So they spoke the same language. And (Hostiuck) had lost his dad and wasn’t able to be there and was kind of holding on to some grief from that. And being able to find someone else’s dad and alive and give them more time really changed him. And I just feel like we also bonded through this.
“It’s just such a story about human kindness and selflessness and it changed both of us,” she continued. “And I hope that my grandkids can tell their grandkids about that and how you treat people and the effects that just a small act of going out on your four-wheeler and looking for somebody, how that can impact yourself and make a huge change in our lives. We are very grateful for him.”
Carroll had indeed driven down the wrong road on is way home. The details are unknown but at some point his tire went flat, he crashed into something that dislodged his front bumper and then his Toyota Land Cruiser became stuck in the snow.
After Carroll was safe, Hostiuck, on his own accord, retrieved Carroll’s vehicle, fixed the flat and reattached the bumper. He also found thousands of dollars worth of pens in the back of the vehicle that Carroll had purchased sometime earlier in the day when he was not in his right mind. Hostiuck and his oldest son boxed them up and returned them to the store and then sent the money to Bryant.
“It has changed my life,” Hostiuck said. “It made me realize the fragility of our existence, of our human condition. And how much you need other people. People say you come into this world alone. I don’t believe that. You have your mom right there. You can’t do without her. And they say you’re going to leave alone. Maybe that’s true, if you didn’t have somebody at the right time.
“It was a weird feeling when all of it happened,” he added. “It was like déjà vu. It felt like déjà vu when the seconds ticked by. It was very odd in that way. What I’ve taken away from it is just an appreciation for how fragile life is, how it can be gone in a flash and how quickly things change. I think there’s something with other people, that’s the piece that makes life more strong, less volatile, because of the people that are around you. It’s where you can get some strength.
“It made me realize you are important and that you have to be there for other people. Be there for yourself but be present for others. It’s really just made me see how connected we are. Everybody is on their own path. But really, it’s like the Aspen or something, like some giant organism. We’re all connected on some level and those roots are pretty deep.”
gjaros@durangoherald.com
