text: A paraplegic man who says he was stranded in the New Mexico desert without his wheelchair dragged himself about four miles down a dirt road over three days before a motorist stopped to help him. 
   
   Ricky Gilmore, 49, shows the pair of pants he was wearing when he dragged himself four miles down a road for three days last week near Tocito, N.M. after a man and woman he met while he was hitchhiking... (Associated Press) 
   
   Tattered and dirty, Ricky Gilmore's blue jeans tell part of the story. His body tells the rest _ the skin on his left leg and buttocks is shredded, his wrist is sprained and his kidneys are in bad shape from going without food and water. 
   
   "Ah man, I'm just a big mess. I ache and I'm just in the first stages of healing," he said Tuesday at the Northern Navajo Medical Center in Shiprock, N.M. 
   
   Gilmore, 49, is being treated for acute kidney failure from dehydration, a sprained wrist and a blood infection. He spent two days in intensive care and it could be at least another week before he can go home. 
   
   The Farmington Daily Times first reported Gilmore's story. He was found along a seldom-traveled road on the Navajo Nation about 10 miles from his home in Newcomb, which is on the eastern side of the reservation. 
   
   Gilmore said he was dropped in the desert by a couple in a white truck whom he met while he was hitchhiking. He had invited them to his home for steaks, and they later went for what Gilmore thought was going to be a joyride. 
   
   When he declined to share his alcohol with them, Gilmore said the man grabbed him by his feet and threw him out of the truck while parked along the desolate road. 
   
   It was early evening and Gilmore had nothing _ no wheelchair, no food, no water, no coat _ to help him endure the flat desert scrubland. 
   
   "It was dark and I was shivering and the wind was blowing so I just crawled to a bush and dug in right there. It was cold that night," he said. 
   
   With the sunrise, survival mode kicked in. 
   
   "I started dragging myself. I did the same thing all day and I only got about two miles," he said. 
   
   Two people passed by. Gilmore tried flagging them down but they only honked and kept going. 
   
   After spending a second night at the side of the road, Gilmore said he woke up sore and thirsty and didn't want to move. 
   
   "I could have easily gave up and said `Forget it,' but I said `I'm not going to freeze out here' and I just kept on going," said Gilmore, who lives by himself and lost the use of his legs in a car crash years ago. 
   
   On the third afternoon, a man in a blue pickup truck stopped and called for help. Gilmore said doctors told him his body temperature was 94 when he was found. 
   
   "I don't think I would have made it another night," he said. 
   
   The Daily Times reported that Gilmore filed a report with Shiprock police. No officials at the department after hours Tuesday could confirm details of the report. 
   
   Gilmore said he's bandaged up "big time" and morphine is helping with the pain. Still, he had a nightmare Monday night in which he found himself sitting at the edge of a freeway waving his hands at the passing traffic, but no one looked at him. 
   
   His plan is simple for when he gets released from the hospital: "Go home and pray, take inventory and just get a good night sleep in my own bed and heal." 
   
   ___ 
   
   Follow Susan Montoya Bryan on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/susanmbryanNM ||||| Print Email Font Resize Font Resize Paraplegic man left without wheelchair in desert for three days 
   
   SHIPROCK — Looking into the eyes of Ricky Gilmore, one can tell he has taken many roads but none like the one he dragged himself down last week. SHIPROCK — Looking into the eyes of Ricky Gilmore, one can tell he has taken many roads but none like the one he dragged himself down last week. Gilmore, a 49-year-old paraplegic from Newcomb, was left without his wheelchair on a desolate dirt road after he hitchhiked with a woman and man near Shiprock on Oct. 16. For two nights and three days, Gilmore scooted against the dirt and rocks of the road not knowing if he would be found. During the darkness of the night, he would ball up to keep warm. He had many enemies he did not have the use of his legs, he had no water or food and it was dreadfully cold. He said he pulled himself about four miles and wondered about the wild animals he would not be able to fight off. "It was torture," said Gilmore at the Northern Navajo Medical Center on Tuesday. Gilmore winced while recalling the ordeal, which began as a quick trip from Newcomb to Shiprock to buy liquor. The trip became somewhat of a "joy ride," he said. The woman and man he hitched a ride with picked up another man, then took Gilmore home, dropped off his wheelchair, then dropped off one man elsewhere followed by a cruise on the Devil's Highway, U.S. Highway 491. That's where hell broke loose, and the woman and the passenger decided Gilmore had to go. "I didn't think anything like this would happen," Gilmore said. He recalled the man yanking him out of the truck by his ankles. "I was just trying to plead with him not to pull me out but he had those wild, devilish eyes," he said. Advertisement "I did not want to fight back...if i did fight back all hell would come loose...I know gangsters like that, they just that start clubbing away." At the hospital, he leaned to his side to show large cuts that he got from pulling himself on the ground. The cuts went across his buttocks and legs. They were covered by wide swaths of bandage and oozed. The wounds were worse when he was found by Wilfred Sisco on Thursday on the dirt at the side of Tocito Road, about 30 miles south of Shiprock. Gilmore waved desperately when Sisco found him. His thighs were bleeding, his body shivering, and his right wrist sprained. Sisco called an ambulance, which then took him to the hospital where he received treatment for a blood infection and acute kidney failure the result of the excessive energy he put into moving his upper half, hospital officials said. He also had a body temperature of 94 when he first received treatment normal is 98.6. His wrist and shoulders were sore after his misery. On his hospital bed, Gilmore showed his ragged pair of jeans, sadly looking through the holes created while he scooted himself over rocks and dirt. The jeans, threadbare, still were the color of the dirt and blood that soaked into them for three days. Then, his button-up shirt, also worn through because of the rubbing on the road. At night, the few items he had did little to keep him warm, he said. "I didn't have a jacket. All I had was my shirt. I just curled up," Gilmore said, who does not think he would have lasted a third night. "I mean, it was cold." The recorded lows for both nights were around 40 in Farmington, though it can sometimes be slightly colder or warmer in the desert, according to the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. The absolute worst part of it, though, Gilmore said, was not the actual survival but the thought that someone would do that to him in the first place. "I mean, I'm in a wheelchair. They should have that respect for people who have a disability. I was just being nice," he said. "The disrespect, you know, for people with disabilities. I didn't do nothing to them." During the first two days he was stranded, three vehicles, including one from the Native American Church, passed by Gilmore while he waved at them. "They just don't have a heart," said Gilmore. Gilmore said he has been hitchhiking for 19 years, since he lost the use of his legs in a car crash on his 30th birthday. Once he makes it home from the hospital, he intends to stop hitchhiking for a while, he said. The Shiprock Police Department is working on a pending police report filed by Gilmore on Thursday. Gilmore described the pair who abandoned him as Native American. The man, who allegedly pulled Gilmore out of the vehicle, is in his mid-20s and has a cursive written tattoo on his neck. The female is heavyset and in her mid-40s. Both suspects are believed to be from the Shiprock or Kirtland area. The pair was driving a white pickup. Gilmore said he feels lucky to have survived. "I just got on the devil's ride," Gilmore said. "I just want to heal up and go home and change my life around and keep going," Gilmore said.
target: – A paraplegic man is recovering after being dumped on a desolate road in the New Mexico desert without his wheelchair. Ricky Gilmore says he spent three days dragging himself four miles down the road after a couple he met while hitchhiking tossed him out of their vehicle when he declined to share his alcohol, the AP reports. The 49-year-old is being treated for kidney failure from dehydration, a blood infection, and a sprained wrist. Gilmore, who lost the use of his legs in a car crash 19 years ago, says three cars passed him during the first two days of his ordeal but they didn't stop when he waved. A vehicle finally stopped on the third day, and Gilmore says he doesn't believe he could have survived a third night in the desert. Cops are searching for the couple who left him in the desert. "I just got on the devil's ride," Gilmore tells the Farmington Daily Times. "I just want to heal up and go home and change my life around and keep going."