Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 11, 2005
Searchers find blind, suicidal Iraq veteran alive by Cindi Lash and Gabrielle Banks
After a daylong search over rugged hills, through caves and around creek beds in Fayette County, search crews last night located Salvatore "Sam'' Ross Jr., a blind, severely injured Iraq war veteran who disappeared a day earlier after threatening suicide.
Joe Basinger, a U.S. Army veteran from Connellsville, and four of Ross' relatives and friends riding all-terrain vehicles found Ross, 22, at about 9:30 p.m. in the Wheeler Bottom section of Dunbar Township. Ross, who walks with a prosthesis, did not appear to have new injuries, but authorities were not sure how long he'd been there, Dunbar Borough Police Chief Mike Garlowich said.
The searchers found Ross while following up on a report that a friend dropped Ross off Monday night at a bike trail along the Youghiogheny River in Connellsville. Garlowich said Ross apparently walked about two miles along the trail into Dunbar Township, where he was found sitting near storage tanks at the municipal water-treatment plant.
Crew transported Ross, who appeared to be tired, in a sheriff's department patrol car to the Dunbar Fire Hall, where yesterday's search had been based. He walked from the car to an ambulance, which took him to Highlands Hospital in Connellsville.
Before he was found last night, authorities said Ross, who'd been gravely injured in Iraq two years ago this month, would be involuntarily committed to a hospital for psychiatric care if he was found alive.
Basinger said he'd never met Ross, but immediately recognized him when he stepped out in front of his ATV in the darkness. He said he told Ross, "You're a vet and I'm a vet, too."
"He just wanted to be left alone and I wasn't leaving him," said Basinger, 43. "In the military, we don't leave anybody behind."
More than 80 volunteers spent yesterday using ATVs, trained dogs and a helicopter to search around Ross' home atop the remote Hardy Hill area of Dunbar Township, at homes of friends and other places he frequented before disappearing Monday night. Relatives said he'd threatened suicide in a call and note before he left and said they feared he was despondent because of the approaching second anniversary of the day he was injured.
After losing his eyesight, his left leg and part of his hearing and suffering other injuries on May 18, 2003, while defusing a bomb in a dusty Baghdad lot, Ross came back to a hometown parade and a community that hailed him as a hero. News accounts detailed his injuries, his rehabilitation and his vow to craft a productive life, spurring hundreds of well-wishers to send letters, cards and pledges of financial or medical support.
But family members and authorities said Ross also has suffered from crushing bouts of depression. He's also had a couple of run-ins with police, including a fight with three patrons and two police officers in a Uniontown bar in February that resulted in his facing trial on aggravated assault and other charges.
"It was so hard when Sam was hurt and we didn't know then if he'd live or not," Ross' sister, Tiffany Ross, said yesterday as she paced and shared hugs with other relatives gathered outside the fire hall, about a mile down Hardy Hill. "This has been so much worse.' "
Ross apparently walked away from his modest beige mobile home Monday night after calling a veterans crisis hotline and asking for help at 7:58 p.m., his cousin, Mindy Werner said. He also called his girlfriend, Jenna Bennett of Smock, and left a message saying that he planned to kill himself, Werner said.
Hotline officials notified police, who accompanied a mental health caseworker to Ross' home, Garlowich said. Ross was gone when they arrived, Garlowich said, but he'd left a note written neatly on plain white computer paper.
Authorities did not release the note yesterday, but Garlowich said the note said "something along the lines of, 'You won't find my body.'"
Ross' brother, T.J. Ross, also said the note indicated that Ross intended to kill himself.
T.J. and Tiffany Ross said they were not sure if their brother had a weapon with him. But T.J. Ross and Garlowich said relatives had cleared his trailer of weapons a few days ago, worried about his emotional state.
Yellow cell phone clasped constantly to his ear, T.J. Ross shuttled yesterday between his brother's mobile home and the fire hall, where police and sheriff's deputies, firefighters and crews from regional search and rescue teams had convened in the parking lot. He shooed others away from the mobile home, fearful that their presence would contaminate traces of his brother's scent and make it harder for search dogs to track the route his brother took when he left.
Garlowich said bloodhounds initially tracked Ross from his trailer and down Hardy Hill to nearby Pechan Road, then lost his scent. That led authorities to suspect he'd been picked up by a friend who'd spotted him walking and offered him a ride.
---------------------------------- (Cindi Lash can be reached at clash at post-gazette.com or at 412-263-1973. Gabrielle Banks can be reached at gbanks at post-gazette.com or 412-263-1370.)
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories