1:10 A.M. — Going out on his own to hunt deer in the heart of the Everglades where he’d never been before was the “dumbest” thing he could have done, Jamey Mosch said.
On Sunday, Mosch, 30, of North Fort Myers, recounted his fight for survival during four days he was lost in the swamp before he was rescued Friday and hospitalized.
During that time, Mosch lost most of his clothes except his underwear, plus his shotgun, cell phone and other belongings in the Big Cypress National Preserve. His knee was thrown out of joint slogging his way through muck. He subsisted by eating raw catfish, bull frogs and sips of spring water before being found by a bloodhound named Max and his handlers.
“It was the dumbest thing. It’s literally the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” said Mosch, sitting in a wheelchair and talking to reporters Sunday at Physicians Regional Medical Center in Naples, where he recuperated before his release Sunday evening.
But from his life-threatening experience, Mosch said he realized that, “I really did get a second chance.
“I would like to do some kind of search and rescue and save somebody else’s life,” said Mosch, lifting his shirt to show the insect bites that cover his body.
“Considering he’d been in the Everglades for four days without food, without water and without sleep, he’s doing pretty good,” said Dr. Charlene DeLuca, the hospital’s chief of medicine.
Mosch, who grew up hunting and camping in the woods of upstate New York, went hunting off of Interstate 75 with newfound friends in the national preserve, which covers 730,000 acres.
While the other hunters stayed in camp fixing their truck, Mosch said he decided to strike out on his own Monday afternoon to bag a deer. He soon realized he was lost and that his compass didn’t work.
“I’d never seen woods like this before,” Mosch said. “Think of the worst jungle you’ve ever seen. This was it times ten.”
By nightfall, Mosch said, “I fired my gun off once. Then I fired three times, once every 30 seconds” to signal his fellow hunters to come to his rescue.
However, because sound in the thick forest of the Everglades echoes, “they thought I was going farther away from them,” he said.
That’s when his partners called 911, starting in motion a search that would begin Tuesday morning and involve up to 60 rescuers using airboats, swamp buggies, ATVs, helicopters and rescue dogs.
Mosch, however, still wasn’t worried Monday night.
“I thought to myself, ‘No big deal. I’ll just camp out.’ I made a camp fire and went to sleep,” said Mosch, who thought he could find his way out Tuesday.
That’s the day “I lost everything,” Mosch said.
He found himself slogging through swamps with mud up to his waist that so thick it was like quicksand. Extricating himself, Mosch lost his pants, his lighter, his boots and a jacket that was tied around his waist.
At one point, he grabbed a branch with one hand and threw his rifle toward a tree with the other hand. That’s when he lost his shotgun. His cell phone got wet and was ruined.
He climbed out of the sucking mud in nothing but long underwear and a tank top. Mosch said he must have blacked out because when he came to, he wondered why he was so scantily clothed.
Mosch spent nights cold and shivering because he had nothing to start a fire. “It was so cold,” he said.
On Wednesday, slogging through the muck, his right knee was thrown out of joint. Although he popped the knee back into place, his leg soon stiffened, making it even more difficult to walk through the dense forest.
Mosch said he could hear search helicopters flying overhead, but the brush was so thick, he couldn’t be seen from above.
Then, “I sensed that somebody’s following me. I turned and caught a glimpse of a Florida panther,” Mosch said.
Mosch said he kept heading toward the interstate, where he could hear the traffic going by.
By Friday morning, Mosch said he was determined to make the highway, even if it meant fording an alligator-infested canal. “I thought I would definitely make it out,” he said.
First, Mosch said he found a place in the sun to warm himself when he thought he was hallucinating again because he heard someone call “Jamey.” By the third time he heard his name, Mosch said he knew he wasn’t delirious. Max the bloodhound and the rescue team found him a mile or less from the interstate.
“I cried, but I had no water left. I didn’t have any tears,” Mosch said.
His son’s ordeal has brought the family closer together, said Jamey’s father, Kevin Whitney. “It’s going to be a darned good Thanksgiving,” Whitney said.
Mosch said he’s accepted an offer from the owner to go back to the hunting camp in the Big Cypress in about a month.
But this time, “I got a GPS system from my family,” Mosch said.
