Bud Clark Survives River Injury Expert First Aid, Chilean Cowboys Save Former Portland Mayor After Leg Punctured

Former Portland Mayor Bud Clark escaped death on an Idaho rafting trip through expert first aid, a little luck and help from some Chilean cowboys.

Clark, 65, is recovering at home in Portland after he fell on a sharp sagebrush stump and ruptured the femoral vein in his left leg May 1 on the fifth day of an 86-mile rafting trip down the remote South Fork of the Owyhee River.

Clark said his lower body was instantly covered with blood.

“I’d never been in a situation like this before,” said Clark, a veteran boatman whose canoe trips on the Willamette River became a symbol of his independent spirit as mayor. “Now I know how easy it is to die. You just sort of fade away.”

Damon Ogle of Neskowin, a 20-year rafting veteran who was standing near Clark, saw the blood and began applying pressure to the wound and to a pressure point. Others quickly divided up responsibilities and started considering ways to get medical help to the isolated site.

Michael Schlicting and fellow rafter Kevin McNamara of Neskowin set out on foot for what they thought could be a 20-mile, two-day search for a road. But they got lucky when they found two caretakers at a ranch a few miles away - the only occupied ranch on the entire stretch of river.

The cowboy caretakers from Chile spoke little English and had neither a phone nor a vehicle. Using makeshift sign-language to communicate, Schlicting and McNamara figured out that the men could make radio contact with a base ranch from a truck parked on a hilltop several miles away.

Schlicting and Rosario Ovando, one of the cowboys, set out on horseback and forded the river to reach the radio and dispatch a call for help.

Back on the riverbank, Ogle and the other rafters moved Clark to a clearing and maintained pressure on the wound for nearly an hour and a half.

Forty-five minutes after the call went out for help, a helicopter scooped Schlicting off the hill and dropped into the river canyon to pick up Clark.

The well-prepared rafters had cleared a landing spot, and marked an “X” with life rafts and had even hoisted a wind sock to inform the pilot of wind direction.

Clark let out the “whoop, whoop” yell that was his trademark during his eight years as mayor as he was loaded into the helicopter. The entire ordeal, from injury to rescue, took about four hours.

“A lot of it is that Bud is in pretty darn good physical condition,” Ogle said. “He walks and he rides his bike.”

Clark retired in 1992 after two terms at City Hall.

He underwent surgery to replace the damaged section of vein and spent four days in a hospital before returning home last week. He hopes to return to the river next year, but jokes about what he calls “attack sagebrush.”

“I’ll go next year if they go,” he said. “But I’m not going to take sagebrush for granted.”