Wesley Weaver spent 4 nights in a hole after falling in while racoon hunting earlier this month. (Photo courtesy the Weaver family)MOBILE, Alabama — Wesley Weaver still can’t quite get it straight in his own head.
The 19-year-old from Jackson goes on a spur-of-the-moment coon hunt, alone, late on the night of Oct. 19. It’s something he’s done so often that his father Scott didn’t give it a second thought when his son left the house shortly before 11 p.m. that Wednesday.
Heading to a Walker Springs hunting club off Good Hope Road in Clarke County that’s been in his family for more than 40 years, Weaver released his coon hounds, Shep and Eli.
In no time, he was following their excited bawling that was telling him they had a raccoon hemmed up in a tree. Weaver easily made his way in the dark toward the barking hounds along Bassett Creek’s moist bottom terrain.
Then he fell in a hole that he’s never encountered, despite having grown up on the property and years of hunting there.
'Scared I was going to die'
Scott Weaver awoke the next morning to find that his son still hadn’t come home.
“About 8 or 8:30, I started to get a feeling something wasn’t right,” he said.
When he learned that Wesley hadn’t shown up at work either, Scott Weaver headed straight to the hunting club, locating his son’s Ford pickup truck about 10:30.
“When I saw his truck, I about had a heart attack,” Scott Weaver said.
In short order, family members found dogs Shep and Eli resting beneath a tree, where tracking collars and other evidence suggested they’d spent the night.
In the hole, Wesley Weaver was glad to see the sunlight but said he never heard his family members’ shouts.
The hole’s rim was high above his head, and he’d failed in his efforts to scrape dirt off the side to build up the bottom so he could try to jump up.
He wasn’t warmly dressed, since he’d figured to be in the woods only a short spell and to build up a sweat chasing his dogs.
He’d left his cell phone in the truck rather than risk getting it wet crossing the creek.
Eventually, day turned into night again. “Cold is not the word for it,” Wesley said.
He was able to lay in a fetal position in the bottom of the hole, he said, but sleep came only during fitfully short periods.
Yet another day came and went. Wesley endured his third night in the hole.
“I got scared I was going to die,” he said.
As the lack of food and water began to take its toll, he became weak, disoriented and lost track of time.
He said, “I heard the helicopters, but I really thought maybe my dad, uncles and a few friends would be out looking for me.”
Instead, by the beginning of Wesley’s last hours in the hole, an estimated 350 searchers were scouring the woods for him.
Said Scott Weaver, “I didn’t know where my boy was, I couldn’t find him. I never asked the Lord to do anything for me, but I hit my knees in my living room at 10:30 Saturday night and I prayed.”
He got his miracle that next day.
Hope in a hopeless world
As he had done numerous times over his days in the hole, Wesley fashioned a loop in the end of a 6-foot dog lead and began throwing it over the hole’s rim, praying it would lasso something so he could pull himself out.
He doesn’t remember how many times he flipped the loop over the rim, but finally it caught on what he soon would see was a cypress knee.
“I don’t know how I found the strength to climb out,” he said.
Free but exhausted, Wesley said, he may have curled up right there outside the hole and slept.
About 1:30 p.m., three local young men who had volunteered in the search found him walking along Evergreen Road. He was about a mile from his Sugar Baker Lane home.
“I didn’t realize there were so many people looking for me until those guys turned around and picked me up,” Wesley said. “I would like to thank all those who searched for me. It’s all so unbelievable.”
Clarke County Sheriff Ray Norris said results of hospital tests showed that Wesley was dehydrated and suffering ketosis, a blood disorder often triggered by not eating.
Wesley and his family went looking for the hole on Monday but didn’t locate it. They planned to look again along the creek this weekend.
“I want to put to rest some of the rumors circulating,” Scott Weaver said, referring to doubts expressed by some questioning his son’s account.
He added, however, “In my 49 years on this earth, I have never seen such an outpouring of compassion. Clarke County is a great place to live.”
Wesley Weaver’s life returned to some semblance of normalcy Tuesday. He went back to his job at a Jackson tire store. He also takes welding classes at Alabama Southern Community College in Thomasville.
His family informed him, however, that there’s a new normal when it comes to coon hunting. No longer will they let him go alone.
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