This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I just wanted to tell you that this is a whole new game for us. it's nice to

see familiar faces in the media. A rapport and a friendship goes a long way

for us. helps kinda settle us down through this whole process. In our

inexperience it's been difficult for us to be able to determine how to best

approach this. We have sincerely appreciated the influence and affect the

resources that have been mustered to.

Jody

We have not been trying to avoid you. We laid in bed this morning trying to

figure out what to do. we have no experience with the media. we weren't

avoiding you. we appreciated, we thank you though.

Toby

I guess that probably what we'd like to do is thank everybody. we want to

celebrate this. what a remarkable finish and conclusion to this whole

experience. You go form incredible worry and concern wondering what you

could have done better what you should have done in the beginning. Then you

go through the search process of not getting any clues and running into dead

ends. And then in just an instance, the flip of a switch you go to

incredible exhilaration and gratitude and appreciation for everybody's

efforts that were directed and that ultimately resulted in the successful

rescue of Brennan.

We understand that this is fairly common. It's going to take a little while

to get everything out.

Jody

This is how he approaches every situation whether he went to the amusement

park or whether, he doesn't' have great communication about events that are

going on in his life. His personality has not changed one tiny bit. He was

cracking jokes from within 20 to 30 seconds. His little funny quirky sense

of humor was right on.

Toby

I thought it was funny, after everything settled down yesterday from the

rescue, he said mom, did my Pokemon cards arrive?

Jody

he ordered them on ebay last week and I tell you that's what got him off

that mountain. He gets very riveted on something and everyday he checked the

mail for them. He asked for them first thing in the hospital, "Did my

Pokemon cards come yet?" And that's his little personality.

Toby

And those things kinda gave us an indication that everything was alright.

One thing that I thought was kinda interesting through the whole process,

once we found and out discovered that he was OK they had evaluated his

medical condition They do that on an alpha basis, A being like we are,

feeling fine, responsive, ready to go. And F being perished, their immediate

assessment was that he was a C. And then they quickly went to an a, after

the EMT had done a quick evaluation right there on the trail. so he's doing

remarkably well. I think that going to he hospital was probably a

precautionary thing more than anything else. They hydrated him. And once

again, Brennan continues to amaze me His ability to deal with this.

Initially I made a comment, that I thought he was the most ill prepared to

deal with this out of our five children. and now I think he really was maybe

the best prepared.

Question: Can you tell us a little bit about him that allowed him to

survive?

Jody

he gets very focused on something. what we've ascertained is he had two

thoughts going through his head all the time: Toby has always told him if

you get lost, stay on the trail so he stayed on the trail We've also told

him don't' talk to strangers. He stayed on the trail When an ATV or horse

went by, he got off the trail and so, Brennan does focus on things. He kept

those two thoughts on his mind, stay on the trail and don't talk to

strangers, which that doesn't' make any sense at all, but to him, that's how

is brain thinks, these are the things I'm supposed to do, this is what I'm

going to do.

Where he was was mostly horses and ATVs. They were up so high in the country

that it was difficult for a lot of people on foot, we don't know how many,

but we do know that he saw ATVs and horses. His biggest fear he told me was

that someone would steal him. I asked him, cold, hunger, he said, "I didn't

want someone to steal me."

He got in midget mode is what he calls it. He perches, he gets on top of our

bar stools, he pulls his shirt over his knees, that's what he does. He said

I was freezing, I got in midget mode. I asked him how many nights he thought

he was gone, he said, "one or two." It's a blur to him at this point.

Question: Where were you guys and and what did you do and what was your

first reaction when you heard the news that he was alright?

Toby

my experience actually was pretty interesting. I was staged on a search that

was in the river area. And I was working with Sean who is part of the Summit

County Search and Rescue. As we were working our way systematically in a

grid pattern trying to eliminate this area, I kinda noticed that Sean broke

back into, he kinda atypically dropped back. So I just kept on searching and

all of a sudden, he popped up out of the willows and said, "Toby, I need to

talk to you." And so I drifted back and I just thought that you know, we'd

been running into so many dead ends that it might have been something that

was media related or Jody wanted to talk to me or something. But then he got

caught up on the radio and he said, "We need to get you to a road and a

vehicle for transportation." I said, "That's great," of course there's a lot

of media around and I didn't' want that to interfere with the search process

so lets stay in the field until we know for sure which truck we're getting.

He got back on the radio with communications and Cindy with Summit County

Search and Rescue was going to come and I said, Sean, you've got to tell me

what I'm dealing with here. I said, "talk to me goose," and he said, " If

everything that I'm hearing on the radio is accurate, they have found

Brennan,"

My first response was, "They've found him?"

And he said "Yes."

He said, "This is all preliminary, there's a possibility that this is not

accurate information. " But then he said, "If everything on the radio is

accurate, he's been found." And then my first question was, "Is he alive?"

He said "He's alive." I said, "What is his condition?" And they said "Good.

He's reasonably in good condition from what they're able to ascertain."

Question: What was the first thing he said to you?

Um, Brennan. . .I remember him saying him mom,

Jody

He read Mariah's shirt that said, "No peeking till Christmas."

Toby

That's right.

Jody

I have the best family in the world, Those are the things I remember him

saying right away.

He sees words and he reads them,

Question: Can you share with us your reaction when you first saw him?

Jody

Oh, mine was much different than Toby's. I was down in the camp surrounded

by a lot of volunteers, it came over my radio, it said, Jody, get away from

the crowd. I didn't know what that meant. They said, "Go by yourself. Go on

the road and get away from the crowd." I said, "Family too?" And they said

"Yes."

You've been to the site, you can't get away from he crowd. They said, "We're

going to bring the Sheriff down for you." It seemed like a really long time

before the Sheriff got there and I was trying to get up to where they were,

and I didn't know anything, I, (pause), I'm sorry. (pause) I at that point,

didn't think that Brennan was still with us. I never felt that he was

abducted, or that he was in harm's way. I felt at peace with the situation.

But at that point I really didn't think he could survive that long in the

wilderness. And so when I was going to get into the Sheriff's car, I knew

they were going to tell me that Brennan was no longer with me and I

collapsed before I could get into the truck, and then they put me into the

truck and they told me that Brennan was still alive and that he was in good

shape. My brain still can't comprehend that. You know, we talk about it, up

there wasn't real. This isn't real and it's going to take some time to

process this event in our heads.

Question: Did he tell you how it started?

Jody

He doesn't remember even going camping.

Question: When you say you thought he might have been dead, is that

something you verbalized and spoke to each other about?

Jody

Uh huh. We talked about that.

Question:

And what were your thoughts about that.

Toby

We've talked a lot about our faith. We believe that families are eternal. We

find great solace in that. With Jody's firm impression that he was not

experiencing pain and going through something that obviously no parent would

want a child to go through, uh, we felt that whatever the result was that

our faith would help us get through it.

Jody

We're learned through this situation that there's worse things than death.

There really are. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a child

and we just felt peace knowing that he was safe, wherever that was.

Question: Does he remember eating or drinking anything?

Jody

No. I asked him if he drank stream or river water and he want "ugh."

Toby

but we know for sure, from the physical condition that he did drink and I

think that will probably come out through time.

Jody

His electrolytes were normal.

Question: What did he want to do first when he got home?

Jody

He wanted to see one of his buddies and he's been sleeping a lot. He's

exhausted.

Question: We heard that he wanted to do a sleepover. . .

Jody

It's a family thing. We don't do sleepovers with our children. We don't' let

our children go out and have sleepovers anyway.

Question: Tell us of that first embrace after four days.

Toby

We were really excited. It took a long time for the rescue flight to get to

us and actually the AirMed couldn't get to him and they ended up having an

ATV go up to the rescue site and then we ended up grouping up as a family

and then we ended up heading down the trail to a landing zone. And then, we

had the ATV come in our direction, immediately, the things I can remember is

they tried to shield us from the sun with the blankets over the top of us .

Brennan was in the ATV and we embraced and he was lethargic.

Jody

But talking. I couldn't' believe he was talking.

Toby

Yeah, he was talking and it was . . it was just. . . it was like a dream. It

was just like a dream. It was just such a happy moment.

Question: You said that he was born quite a bit premature.

Jody

He was.

Question: Has he been a survivor from the start?

Jody

Absolutely.

Question: Has that caused challenges for him in life in his abilities?

Jody

It has. Yes. And he's a survivor. Whatever happens he overcomes them and he

just keeps going. He taught us from the middle of the pregnancy until today.

Everything has been a teaching.

Toby

Challenges can be defined in different terms. Brennan has the capacity to do

anything and everything that he wants. The affects of being born premature

have affected his social maturity. Everyone of us are on a tangent of

growing up you know and Brennan probably being an 11 year old boy acts a

little bit younger. But he doesn't have, you know, he's not retarded. He

doesn't have any mental disabilities he's just immature.

Question: You mentioned earlier that he did not respond to searchers. That

he's shy . .

Toby

And that's a great comment and something that as we've viewed the whole

situation, we think that it's absolutely critical for parents to understand

now that there's two basic lessons that need to be taught. One of them is

stranger danger, um, run, scream, get out of there, have a password for your

family. I think everybody knows our password is BYU. We're Cougar fans but

that'll be changed and I've been encouraged to make that Utah. And I keep

telling my friend Mike that obviously isn't going to happen.

But the other side of it is the rescue side, and this may have come to a

much faster conclusion had we talked more with Brennan about that.

Jody

Nobody thinks this is going to happen to their child. Not one of you out

there really believes it's going to happen to your child. We still don't

believe it's going to happen. There's nothing in your brain to process that

kind of information. So we never go beyond don't talk to strangers. And the

likelihood of getting struck by lightening is probably a whole lot greater

but really, children need to be taught, if you're missing, and I don't know

how to teach children that, you know, at some point, if people try to find

you. . .

Toby

I've thought about that, I think that what I'm going to do with my kids now

is we're going to get out, anybody who spends any time outside, there's the

potential of being lost, and most people who spend time outside. . . I've

been lost. I had a horrible experience on an elk hunt once, I was lost for

four hours and I kinda talked to Brennan a little bit about that and

empathized with him and I told him that on one small level I've had that

experience. But I would like to get our children out and we'll just go

through that whole scenario and I think that will make enough of an imprint

if we do it two or three times and create the scenario and let them know

what resources are going to be.

Jody

Because they do remember the rest that they're taught.

Toby

Yeah, they remember. That's the beautiful part that Brennan was just rock

solid in everything that he'd been taught, ya' know. He was on a trail he

stayed away from strangers. He know that it would be bad if he was taken by

a stranger all these things, he responded like a champ.

Question: (can't hear)

Jody

He didn't process information. He know two things: stay on the trail and

stay away from strangers.

Question: What does he think about all of these cameras?

Jody

He loves watching it which is hilarious, he goes, his picture will come on

and he goes, "Sweet." I was just funny. I don't' think he can connect all

of this to what's going on on TV but last night, one of the first things

that we did he says, people know me? And I said, Yeah, Brennan. People do

know you.

Question: Anything he wanted to convey through you guys to the community?

Toby

We didn't' talk specifically about that, I'm sure that once he gets a handle

on it that he would want to thank everybody.

Question: What does he think of this in your front yard.

Toby

Brennan's still asleep. Brennan fell asleep about 7:30 last night and he's

still asleep.

Question: Have you talked to the man who actually found him.

Jody

I didn't.

Toby

I did. I gave Forest I believe is his name. I have him a big hug and just

expressed my appreciation. He felt like he was led and directed. It was his

first day on the search operation.

Jody

Most of those guys were on their first day. They thought, this is where we

need to go and they were not actually where they were assigned. They got

lost. I don't know if you knew that or not. There were assigned to a

different quadrant and they were lost, I don't' know if I should say that or

not, they were on a different trail and that's when they found him.

Question: Anything you'd like to say to the searchers?

Jody

Oh we' love you. And it's not just those people, it's every single person up

there which made that search smaller and smaller and smaller. It was every

single person up there.

Toby

It was a symphony of events.

Question: Have you been able to reconstruct any part of his path?

Jody

Yes, the guy that he was with last night went through the scenario and his

philosophy or theory I think is spot on.

Question: Who was that?

Jody

Martin Christiansen

Toby

Martin is a friend of the family. He was the father of the family that

Brennan went up with.

Question: Can you explain any of this long four day journey that Brennan

took?

Jody

No.

Toby

That's the part that, we don't want to pressure Brennan, or force him to, we

just think that time needs to run its course and I wish we had more answers,

ya' know?

Question: What was the first that he did when he got home?

Toby

First thing that happened is that he came in and gave a big hug to Taylor

when he got home last night and Taylor said, "Man where were ya', ya' know?"

Brennan just kind of gave him a blank stare and I don't' think he has the

ability right now to start at the beginning of the path and go to the end.

And thank heavens, I think that helped him through the whole process.

Question:

Did campers say that he was OK that day on the climbing wall? He did all

right? Not in any kind of emotional state or anything?

Toby

He went up a little higher than ... He doesn't like heights. But it wasn't

anything out of the ordinary.

Question:

Not to relive the bad parts ... but was there a moment when you lost hope,

do you remember a time, an event that caused you to think we're not going to

find him?

Toby

I don't remember an event but I remember in the searching process I remember

that when we hit the 72-hour mark I was searching with Dirk Brock Hill, just

an incredible guy on the search and rescue -- taught me an awful lot about

that process and that -- but, I looked up at him, I looked at my watch. It

was 5:30. It must have been Monday evening, and I said, "Dirk we just hit

the 72-hour mark." You know as much as you don't want to have anything like

that happen, we all knew the reality of 72 hours. I guess that if I were to

talk to somebody else that was faced with this parents and anybody else ...

You just can never, absolutely never, lose hope. You can remember my first

comments that I made, you know, about Brennan being unprepared and stuff.

But somehow or another he drew some courage, some determination. And he had

the ability to survive. I've told Brennan, I said, "Brennan, you know what,

I don't know how many 11-year-old boys could survive what you went through."

You know, and it's remarkable that he had the ability to deal with it.

question

unintelligible

Jody

It is. It is. And you guys know one piece of this miracle. There are as many

tiny miracles that went through this as there is the fact that he's home

alive, and that's what ... It would take days ... In fact, the rain started

half an hour after he was found. I mean just on and on and on. Brennan told

us that the first thing he did, the only thing he's actually been able to

tell us, a detail, he told you ...

Toby

Well, I talked to Brennan, and it was kind of a quiet moment together when I

was talking to him about me being lost and stuff because I was trying to

milk it out of him. I want to know what he did. And I said, "Brennan, did

you go uphill or down hill?" I said, "Son, the first night that we went in

to rescue, we went downhill with flashlights and we thought that's the

direction you would have gone." And he ... I said, "Did you go uphill?" And

he said, "Yes." And then I said, "Once you realized that you were lost what

did you do?" And he paused for a minute and he said, "Let me think." And

then he said that he said a prayer. And I said, I said to Brennan, "Do you

know what Brennan? Heavenly Father has taken care of you."

Jody

And he knows that. He's told us that.

Toby

And your prayers and our prayers and everybody's prayers have brought us

back together. And we believe that. My wife said unequivocally yesterday in

a brief statement, "We do believe that God had his hand in everything that

took place and transpired." I think as a world we need to understand that

there is a god. I think that we need to be rooted in these fundamental

principles and the teachings that the Savior taught of love and of service.

And when you start working with the search and rescue guys and those sheriff

people ... once you get past that tough exterior, these people are based in

taking care of and loving people. They serve and they receive an incredible

amount of gratification by helping people. And now wouldn't that be a better

world if we were all that way.

Jody

Most of them aren't even compensated.

dad

That's the incredible part. One of the guys in the search and rescue ...

Jody

...none of them are compensated

Toby

Yeah. They're not compensated. They did say it was a 40-hour initial push to

be able to, understanding that time was of the essence ... They surrender

everything really: their livelihood and that. And it was just absolutely

incredible and inspirational to see what they were willing to do.

question

Has anyone recommended that he might need counseling?

Jody

We have a family friend whose a therapist, and we talked about it. We're

definitely going to do everything, and not just for him, but for all of our

children.

question

But everything's OK for now?

Jody

For now.

question

Emotionally as well?

Jody, dad

Yeah

question

Unintelligible

Jody

We got about four hours of sleep again last night, and they're all sound

asleep. They're so relieved, and we're going to make sure that they're ...

They've all been through an incredibly traumatic experience, too, and it's

going to take a long time for their brains to process this information.

question

How did Kevin Bardsley help you guys?

Toby

I had a chance to talk with Kevin last night. As I was running up the hill

to get into the truck to go over to the recovery and rescue Brennan, the

first things that went through my mind, honest, were how can i talk to Kevin

and Heidi. And I talked to Kevin. And I said, "Kevin, I really cannot" ...

I'm not eloquent enough to be able to express to him the gratitude that we

have for everything that he did. His resources and the experience that they

went through with Garrett and being able to ... Now we have proven, I hope,

for search and rescue, law enforcement and everybody that volunteers can

work in tandem with the professionals to be able to have a successful

result. And all that comes because of Kevin and the numerous people that

were involved. I know that Kevin would want to spread around, you know, the

gratitude and the compliments to everybody who's worked so hard. Gary, his

team captain, I don't know what their titles are. Gary was just rock solid.

Kevin came into the operation in the very beginning, and my heart goes out

to the Bardsley family. We love them. They're kindred spirits. And I can

assure you, I'll be up there helping them search for Garrett.

Jody

And that's what we want to take this from here. We are fine. We want to take

this and move forward and find Garrett and every other child.

Toby

Well, yeah, there really is a bigger agenda because, you know what, we would

like to encourage everybody to do is ... When you get into this situation,

the resources are so small, you know, and everybody knows that money brings

capabilities and it brings technology and it brings all this information to

be able to help then. And we'd like to encourage people to contribute to

[http://www.findinggarrett.org], so that we can muster the resources to do

this faster. And I think that that's what the Bardsley family would like to

have happen. I think they want the next search to be faster. We'd love to

get to a point where any parent that has this experience can capitalize upon

the resources of

a local and a national ability to respond and just take it and run and

hopefully it's an hour.

question

Is Brennan allowed to go on another hike?

Jody

He won't be going by him ... He wouldn't want to.

Toby

You know what? Right now that probably won't happen. But that's our

lifestyle, and we love it. And I hope he can get back up on the horse, quite

frankly.

question

Unintelligible

Toby

Definitely. There was never any question about the confidence and capability

of the Boy Scouts of America.

Jody

There wasn't.

Toby

Never.

Jody

And the fact that it happened in that camp, where we had commissaries and

rest rooms and open fields and people there ... I mean if it had to happen,

it couldn't have been a more convenient location. That's what the Bardsley's

didn't have is a convenient location for parking, for media, for TVs, for

horses, for commissaries, for command posts. And we had all of that. It's

like it was set up for that kind of a thing.

Toby

If we didn't have their confidence, their expertise and their willingness to

help us out, you know, we probably wouldn't be here right now. We'd still be

searching.

question

Do you see yourselves maybe getting involved in helping other people?

Jody

Oh, absolutely.

dad

No question. We're not too worried about the limelight, you know, so we

would like to be involved in it. There's great peace that comes from people

that know from past experience what this is all about.

question

unintelligible

Jody

More of what I understand, it was kind of a muddy trail and it was easy

to... just mud puddles. It wasn't wet like a river wet. It was a wet like

falling into a puddle wet. I don't think that happened before dark.

question

He doesn't remember anything else then?

Toby

No. He hasn't told us anything about the water. We do know that he drank. I

mean he started drinking at the time that he was on the trailhead. We do

running and stuff, and even in the most difficult run, sometimes my system

doesn't start working for another four hours. I know that's a little

personal, but it will give you a little insight to ... Brennan was back on

that path, you know. Brennan, his system was working within four hours.

Jody

He was definitely dehydrated. Definitely.

Toby

He's...

Jody

Hungry.

Toby

Hungry and he's (unintelligible)

question

What meal are you going to cook him?

Jody

Whatever he wants.

question

unintelligible

Toby

We don't know.

Jody

Actually, we're going in to see how he feels. I want to be there when he

wakes up. That's kind of our first concern today. We just want to thank you,

though. We truly want to thank you. I know you guys have been here very

early, very late. And we appreciate it. As far as we know, we'll you again

this afternoon.

Toby

I wanted to be a little bit more definitive in the people that we thank.

Obviously, we're grateful for the power and influence of our immediate

family. Our children have just been awesome in this whole thing. Our

extended family, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas. They've just been

wonderful. We have a close nucleus of friends, and we want to thank them.

They know who they are. Their support was absolutely remarkable. We wanted

to thank the countless volunteers, the people that at a glance we knew and

those who could care less about the recognition. Those are the ones who I

think really inspired us. They come and drop off gifts, things that would

help out in the search and take off. They didn't want a pat on the back or

anything. They're just incredible. We wanted to thank the Summit County

search and rescue group. These guys are awesome. We never ever ever

questioned their ability to be able do this. The competency, and maybe in

one of the interviews I can tell you a little bit abut the history of how

the Summit County search and rescue got started with four men who were

instrumental in the rescue of Brennan. We wanted to thank the sheriff's

department for their professionalism and their experience.

Jody

And their humanism. and that's what I kept thinking ... If this had been a

big city I just don't know ... We never left the debriefing without human

feeling (unintelligible) every single man there. The emotion was incredible.

It wasn't for any gain except for to bring Brennan home.

Toby

The dog teams, the swift water rescue. Obviously, we talked about Kevin

Bardsley and his group, Heidi, his family. They were awesome in consoling us

and giving us the assistance that we needed. And everybody else. You guys.

The media played a critical role in mustering on that second day near 3,000

to be able to get there and search.

Jody

The fact that the people that found him, almost all of them it was

first-day search is a contribution to you guys because three days into it,

you were still bringing people out for it. ... Thank yo