Brody Young (31:49)
So let's talk about the stars that come out at night. You can see all the stars. It's just so clear and so dark. It's considered dark sky country. And when the sun rises and you go, you know, on the cliff's edge up at Dead Horse Point, you can see mountain ranges that are 100 at 150 miles away. It's just desolate and vast. And if you don't go out prepared, it's going to bite you. I've recovered a lot of bodies, whether they were on the river, you know, or got lost in those canyons, and they just weren't prepared. So you're putting yourselves on a tightrope, and it's easy to fall. In Desolation Canyon on the Green river, there's a few places you can go see a skull, which is odd, isn't it? But someone dies in the desert, they're going to stay there for a long time before they're found. Some people choose to go die alone in a beautiful place. That happens actually kind of frequently. And that's, that's something I have a hard time understanding. How can life get so bad that you want to end it? November 19, 2010. I was on patrol. I was on a. An extra shift I'd worked that day, but there was some overtime money available. And it's a really warm, warm night. It's kind of the warm before the storm. Then I went down this Colorado river corridor to these trailheads to see if anyone is still up onto the Trails. And the first trailhead I went to is Poison Spider Mesa Trailhead. So I found this lone car in the kind of back of the parking lot. And it was parked really awkward, like I was worried someone would be out on the trail still that hadn't made it back. It was kind of late and late in the season too, so I couldn't see a plate. And I kind of rolled up to it and turned on my overhead white lights and got out of my truck and walk around to the driver's side and I see this lump in the backseat and I think, oh man, someone's sleeping in there. And so I knock on the window and, you know, I knock on it several times. And this gentleman wakes up and he opens the door and I tell him who I am and ask if he's okay. And then he said he was. And then we talked about where he could go camp because camping wasn't allowed in that parking lot. He was in a sleeping bag. So I didn't get a good look at his face. His face today still doesn't mean much. But I needed to get some ID on him and he doesn't have any or doesn't want to give me id, so I asked him to wait there and I walked back to my truck and I looked back once, which is what you're supposed to do when you're on a traffic stop. But my night vision was blinded from the lights and I couldn't hear anything but the noise of the truck. But just as I got to my truck door and just as I was about to get in, that's when the first shot rang out. It hits me in my left arm. I'm left handed, it shatters. And man, I screamed out and I turn and I just see muzzle flash and him advancing on me, firing one shot after the other. Three more rounds hit my back. Two of those rounds were stopped by the vest, but the third round broke through and went into my vertebrae. I fell to the ground at that point. And he is just standing right over me, hitting me with round after round. There was a lot of gravel bouncing around. Eventually he stops. And then I had this moment. It's a terrible cliche, but it was either you lay down and die or you get up. And man, I wanted to live. So I got up, it startled him and he ran to the front of my truck and I ran to the back of mine. And in the meantime, I'm looking at my left hand and I'm telling it to grab the gun, but it won't grab the Gun, it won't move. And I finally just said to myself, you idiot, use your other hand. And that's when I began firing back at him through the windows of my truck. I was also counting my rounds because I knew my reload was going to be with my arm dangling non traditional. So I released the mag and put the gun between my legs, and I used my bumper to chamber around and begin shooting more. I fired in all about 24 rounds. And then he raises his hands and I stopped shooting. And he says, you got me. And then I began to go unconscious. I woke up a short time later. I was laying on my back, and I kind of raised my head and looked down my body to see my truck running. And I noticed his car was gone. And then I thought to myself, laying there, no one knows I'm here. I didn't notify anyone that I was out checking on this car. I had been shot nine times, and I knew that the only way I was going to get help is if I got to that truck radio. But I did not feel right inside. I felt very heavy, like someone had poured concrete on me. My right leg was numb, my left arm was numb, and it was really hard to move. And I slowly began just rolling onto my stomach, rolling onto my back towards my truck. And this took some time. It felt like forever. And, you know, the exhaust is on and it's pouring out. But eventually I reached the front door, and the front door was open. Joe, I've always made it a point to get out of my truck, leaving that door open. I've just always felt like I should. And I leaned up against it, reached for the radio and said, Price 2 Alpha 69. I'm a poison spider. Mace at trailhead. I've been shot. Please hurry. And I didn't know what to do after that. All my training, I just didn't know what to do after that. When the ambulance arrived, it took me to the hospital in Moab. And from there I was choppered to the hospital in Grand Junction, where I underwent emergency surgery. But let me just tell you the damage. My heart was hit small intestine, colon, right kidney, liver, diaphragm, left lung, spine, spine, pelvis, left humerus, you know, left triceps muscle, right forearm, right femoral nerves, right hip flexor. And they told me that I shouldn't be alive. Say I died a couple of times during those first few days in surgery. But after I woke up, I eventually got to the point where I asked, where, where's the suspect? So I was told that after I was taken to the hospital, they found the car that he had driven off in, and it was definitely off the beaten path, but they've noticed that there was a blood trail that wandered off down the river corridor. And they followed this blood trail for like, a mile to a boulder field. And it looked like it had been setting up to ambush anyone who came over the hill because there was a backpack and a.22 rifle and, you know, food and sleeping gear. And he didn't leave a blood trail from that point on. And so the trail went cold. But when they found his vehicle, they ran the license plate and found that it led them to a name of Lance Leroy Arellano.
