Lost near Shaver Lake, Fresno student survives night in cold

By Valerie Westen
The Collegian

A fun snowmobile ride nearly turned into a nightmare when Casey Steggall, 24, went missing for 22 hours near popular Fresno State vacation place Shaver Lake.

Steggall, a full time student who plans on transfering to Fresno State next fall, got lost near Tamarack Ridge between Shaver Lake and Huntington Lake. His brother, Casey Steggal, a liberal arts major at Fresno State was relieved his brother was found alive.

“I was really worried for my brother and the worst was going through my mind. I thought we were going to find him dead. It was the worst day I have ever had.” Chris said.

Steggall recounted his ordeal.

“We went on a ride that morning with my brother and my roommate. After a while, I decided to go back, left the group and took a wrong turn,” He said.

Steggall was riding a 1997 snowmobile when he hit a patch of powdered snow and got stuck.

“I tried to get it out for hours but couldn’t, and I got really tired. I was debating whether to stay there or walk back,” he said. “I was not really lost, I had an idea of where I was, but I further than I thought.”

“Around 2 p.m., we talked to someone from the Forest Service and gave him a description of my brother.

Then he used his radio to call the sheriff department,” he said.

Casey’s brother Chris Steggal, a junior liberal arts at Fresno State and a firefighter, had started getting worried around that time and alerted 20 of his friends and co-workers from the fire department to help the sheriff’s rescue team look for his brother.

Steggall realized people were looking for him when he saw a helicopter flying by. He decided to burn his snowmobile to get the rescue team’s attention.

“Luckily I had matches in my bag, and I don’t even smoke. I cut the main fuel line and set my snowmobile on fire,” he said.

Steggall said his vehicle burned for about two hours, melting the snow to the ground and making a hole in which he decided to spend the night.

“When I got in it, it was so hot that a piece of metal burned and melted my boots,” he said.

By the time the sun went down, Steggall had finished his two bottles of water he had brought with him and a few granola bars. He decided to keep himself hydrated and filled his bottles with snow that he put by the fire to melt.

The hole made by the snowmobile helped protect him from the wind and the burned pieces of the machine along with some dead branches fed to the fire helped keep him relatively warm for a while.

“I was only wearing a couple of sweaters, some jeans, a beanie and my boots, and it was freezing,” Steggall said.

The temperature that night went down to 18 degrees and the sheriff believed the snowmobiler had no chance of surviving.

“I thought that I could die, but didn’t want to be a dead guy in a hole and upset my family, mostly my mom who is going through chemotherapy right now because of breast cancer. So I started thinking about the beach and other warm places, and promised myself the first thing I would do when I got back home is take a hot bath” Steggall said.

The snowmobiler said he started fearing for his life when the fire died out.

“I had a hard time breathing because of the cold and the altitude. I got really scared after I blacked out the first time. I didn’t want to fall asleep and never wake up.”He said.

The search for the snowmobiler continued all night and only stopped for about an hour at 4 a.m.

Steggall was rescued by a helicopter around 8.30 a.m. on Friday, a mile away from his burnt machine.

“They asked me, ‘are you Casey Steggall?’ and I responded ‘I’ll be whoever you want me to be as long as you get me out of here.’ I was so relieved.”

He was taken to the sheriff who then drove him back to Tamarack Ridge where the media and his friends were waiting for him.

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