Missing runner: I hit my head twice and woke up in the woods on a pile of sticks
TITUSVILLE — By the time he had run roughly 60 grueling miles through the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary, Earl Blewett became delirious in the darkness — he had struck his head twice and rolled his ankle during the Ancient Oaks 100-Mile Endurance Run.
Blewett's memories are hazy: He erroneously thought he had finished the ultramarathon that night of Dec. 18, driven his car back to his hotel room, and laid down in bed. But when the Oklahoma college professor groggily woke up the next day, he discovered he had actually fallen asleep somewhere in the dense woods — "the bed was just this big pile of sticks."
Injured, dehydrated and possibly concussed, Blewett had no clue he was the subject of an extensive search-and-rescue campaign across the 470-acre wilderness preserve. Titusville police officers and firefighters, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, volunteers and dogs searched the forest Sunday until nightfall for the missing 57-year-old runner, to no avail.
Then Monday morning, Blewett was spotted by a security guard behind Knight's Armament Co., off the south side of State Road 405 near the Enchanted Forest Sanctuary. Blewett was in a state of delirium, Titusville Police Sgt. Timothy Werring said during a press conference that afternoon.
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“A snake could have been bad, had I gotten bitten. Or, if I was confused and fell in the canal. It could have gone real badly," Blewett said during a phone interview from his hospital room at Parrish Medical Center. "I’m glad it ended as well as it did. It was not how I had planned to spend my pre-Christmas."
Blewett was still at the hospital on Christmas Day. He said he spent the week recovering from kidney damages, a severely sprained ankle with cellulitis, and minor injuries. Bloody cuts laced his forehead and nose.
“I hit my head a couple of times pretty hard. That’s what led to all this, I think — you can only concuss yourself so much," Blewett said.
"And I didn't realize it was as bad as it was. I was running really well. I was very, very happy with how I was running," he said. “I fell and did a really good face plant. (And) then I walked into a sign. That really hurt. So I think the head trauma was probably cumulative, and tied in with the trauma from the sprained ankle.
"I laid down and basically slept all Sunday and missed the whole day. So that's not normal by any measure. Not even in my world," he said.
Blewett said Saturday his kidneys were improving and family members had flown to the Space Coast to visit him. He said he hopes doctors discharge him from the hospital as soon as Monday.
Earl Blewett is a professor of microbiology, ultramarathoner
Blewett, who lives in Tulsa, Okla., is a professor of microbiology at Oklahoma State University. He ran his first ultramarathon in 1993, and he has completed about 80 throughout his running career.
In October, Blewett finished in 45th place out of 58 finishers in the Mines of Spain 100-Mile Endurance Run near Dubuque, Iowa. Participants completed five laps of a 20-mile loop along the Mississippi River Valley. Blewett finished that 100-mile ultramarathon in 30 hours, 32 minutes and 33 seconds.
Back in 1995, Belwett said he suffered a head injury and concussion during an Ironman Canada triathlon, and he developed hypernatremia. Marked by a high concentration of sodium in the bloodstream, this electrolyte imbalance can cause muscle weakness, confusion, lethargy and unconsciousness.
Titusville's Ancient Oaks 100-Mile Endurance Run is an invitation-only ultramarathon. The race started at 7 a.m. Dec. 18, and runners attempted to finish 29 loops of a 3.46-mile trail course — totaling 100.34 miles — in the Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary within 32 hours.
Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands program established the sanctuary, which contains oak scrub, mesic and hydric hammock, wet prairie and pine flatwood habitats, creeks and the Addison Canal.
Blewett said he rolled his ankle about Lap 14 or thereabouts, but he continued to run. He was last seen on the trail course about 9:30 p.m. that Saturday.
“I was running on Lap 18. And somewhere in there, I thought I finished the race and I drove my car to my hotel room. Except that I didn't go to a hotel room, and I didn't drive the car," Blewett recalled.
“I went in and laid down on a bed. And when I woke up, the bed was just this big pile of sticks. And I was in the bush. My ankle had swollen so much I couldn't walk," he said. "I just I figured I had a concussion, and I just laid down and woke up Sunday night."
Werring said Sunday's search effort within Enchanted Forest Sanctuary included grid searches, K-9s, ATVs and Brevard sheriff's mounted patrols. Race volunteers also searched the running loop, trails that were not used during the race, and areas outside the park.
Race director Mike Melton said it was "astounding" that Blewett emerged from the Titusville forest two days after turning up missing.
"I don't know that we'll ever know the timeline of where Earl was, when he left the park, when he crossed the road, when he fell and hit his head, how many times he fell, when he damaged his ankle, if he damaged it further later on, and so on," Melton said.
In the 23-year history of the Ancient Oaks 100-Mile Endurance Run, Melton said Blewett's disappearance was only the second incident that required emergency-services personnel. In the other incident, a runner from the Naples area became dehydrated three or four years ago.
“I’d just like to thank all the people who went out looking for me. I’m sorry I disrupted their weekend. I’ve never had anything happen like this before," Blewett said. “I had to promise my wife I’ll buy a (satellite-tracking) spot locator and wear it. I was running a 3½-mile loop in a park. I really, really didn't expect to get lost."
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Missing runner in Titusville: I hit my head twice, woke up in woods
