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Man found near Lump Overlook on Parkway
by Jule Hubbard
(Photo caption) Patricia Bare/staff photo-Matthew Oleksa is carried in a Stokes basket to the parking lot of the Lump Overlook on the Parkway early Saturday afternoon. Oleksa remains hospitalized.
A man found near the Lump Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Wilkes County after a four-hour search Saturday was flown by AirCare helicopter to Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem.
Matthew Phillip Oleksa, 27, of Raleigh was listed in fair condition at Baptist late this morning.
Oleksa was going in and out of consciousness and had dangerous pulse and respiration rates as emergency personnel carried him several hundred yards in a Stokes basket to the Lump Overlook parking lot, said Wilkes Emergency Services Coordinator Suzanne Hamby. The AirCare helicopter landed in the parking lot.
Oleksa was found about 1 p.m. Saturday in woods just below the base of the southern side of the Lump, a large grassy hill on the south side of the Parkway that is about three miles south of the intersection of N.C. 16 and the Parkway.
Parkway and Wilkes emergency officials said a prescription pill bottle was on the ground near Oleksa when Wilbar Fire Department first responders found him.
Officials said it wasn't clear Saturday morning if Oleksa had consumed some of the prescription pills.
Mrs. Hamby said Oleksa had a backpack and a blanket when he was found. She said he was in a ravine covered with a thick stand of briars.
Parkway rangers first noticed Oleksa's unoccupied vehicle in the Lump parking lot about 6 p.m. Friday, said Dave Bauer, chief ranger for the Bluffs District of the Parkway.
Bauer said that when it was still there Saturday morning, they used the license plate number on the vehicle to determine its owner and reached relatives of Oleksa.
Parkway officials learned he stayed with his brother and a friend in a rental cabin at Beech Mountain the previous weekend and had told relatives he was going back there this past weekend.
Mrs. Hamby said Parkway officials first contacted her at 8 a.m. Saturday and then called at 8:30 a.m. to confirm that help was needed from Wilkes for a search. She then contacted the Wilbar Fire Department, which supplied six first responders.
The Wilkes Rescue Squad and Wilkes Emergency Medical Service also were dispatched. Mrs. Hamby said the Glendale Springs Fire Department was on standby but wasn't needed. Six Parkway rangers were on the scene. |
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