A 49-year-old paraplegic was left on a dirt road without his wheelchair after hitchhiking with a man and woman near Shiprock, New Mexico.
Ricky Gilmore, Newcomb, spent two nights and three days in a New Mexico desert without his wheelchair and ended up dragging himself four miles down a dirt road before being noticed by a motorist, according to NBC News.
The skin on his left leg and buttocks is shredded, he has a sprained wrist, and his kidneys aren’t doing so great from the lack of food and water.
Gilmore is being treated for acute kidney failure from dehydration, a sprained wrist, and a blood infection. He has spent two days in intensive care and it could be up to a week before he can go home.
The trip began when Gilmore hitched a ride with a man and woman. They ended up picking up another man. They took Gilmore home and dropped off his wheelchair; they also dropped off the other man and then took a cruise on Devil’s Highway (U.S. Highway 491), according to The Daily Times.
Then the woman and passenger decided they had to get rid of Gilmore.
Gilmore said, “I didn’t think anything like this would happen. I was just trying to plead with him not to pull me out but he had those wild, devilish eyes. I did not want to fight back…if I did fight back all hell would come loose…I know gangsters like that, they just that start clubbing away.”
Gilmore was found by Wilfred Sisco. Sisco immediately called an ambulance. He had a body temperature of 94.
“I didn’t have a jacket. All I had was my shirt. I just curled up,” Gilmore said.”I mean, it was cold.”
The temperature gets down to about 40 degrees at night. Gilmore had hitchhiked for about 19 years and intends to stop for a while.
