Rescuers pull man off Afton to safety

AFTON - Two rescue crews riding in massive snow removal tractors and military-issue vehicles diligently slogged their way up a treacherous road Monday to rescue a stranded motorist and his dog Soda Pop near the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Two crews responded to a 911 call at about 11 a.m. for a driver potentially suffering from frostbite on Howardsville Turnpike, unpaved snaking from Sherando to Afton.

A Virginia Department of Transportation motor grader used all of an hour to plow a route through a series of harrowing hairpin turns.

from Sherando while a six-wheel-drive personnel transporter from the Wilson Volunteer Fire Company followed.

“When I pulled up, [Soda Pop] was looking out the window,“ said VDOT grader driver Shane McCrey.

Rescuers found signs of hypothermia affecting Danny Whitley, of the Grottoes area, who was identified by his brother David Whitley.

“I’m glad they done it,“ David Whitley, of Stuarts Draft, said of rescuers.

After a two-hour ride back to Afton, Danny Whitley walked into the back of a Waynesboro ambulance and was taken to Augusta Health with non-life-threatening injuries, said Waynesboro Firefighter Eric Cox.

His brother scooped up Soda Pop.

Cox, who arrived with the Afton-side crew, said the stranded pickup truck was stuck in a 10-foot snow bank. He said his team, which included two Virginia Army National Guard Humvees, encountered 15-foot drifts that would have been impassable without the 20-foot VDOT snow blower that led the way. The crew went about 2 miles in three hours.

“It was a hard go, but it went,“ McCrey said.

Authorities could not say how the man got stranded or for how long.

“At least today,“ Cox said.

Tony Gonzalez is a staff writer for The News Virginian in Waynesboro, Va.