Tuesday, December 10th, 2024, at 8:50 p.m. (ET), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in Tennessee. The requester, Howard Heim, submitted the following information: “I’m stuck in mud in my Grand Cherokee, reverse is not working, I need to pull out, off of Miller road in Vonore, Tennessee. I’m not too far from solid ground, just a few feet. / I’m with the vehicle.”
Our administrator, Al Fontan, contacted the requester and verified the contact information provided, GPS location, and current situation before sending the request to local volunteers. In this particular recovery, we contacted volunteers within a 70-mile radius.
After contacting a group of volunteers and waiting for about an hour, I started reviewing our volunteers’ map to manually reach out to those nearby.
I contacted Austin Slover, who immediately offered to help, and reached out to Howard. Up to this point, my communication with Howard had been smooth, but when Austin tried to text him, he received no response. Despite this, Austin decided to drive to the location to see if he could find them and assist.
While Austin was en route, we stayed in touch with him and continued trying to reach Howard, but with no success. Upon arriving near the reported location, Austin initially couldn’t locate the vehicle. After some back-and-forth, we shared an aerial view of the area, which helped him finally find the stuck rig.
When Austin reached the vehicle, he sent us a photo, but no one was there—it had been abandoned. The situation appeared to involve a possible homeless individual. We made one final attempt to contact Howard, but when that failed, we decided to cancel the request. I felt bad for Austin, who had driven out there without hesitation.
The following morning, Austin went back to the site without delay. In daylight, he was able to locate the individuals and successfully recover the vehicle. He later sent us a few photos and a quick note about the recovery.
From Austin
“Could not find him that night but found the vehicle. After he texted me back the next morning went back and got him out, took a bit because he had no reverse and we had to change angles and reattach to make quite a few turns through the trees. Pics attached.”
