Joe Little’s mother says it is a miracle her son survived after a boulder pinned him against an Oregon jetty and he used Siri to summon rescuers.
Mindy Little offered that stark assessment after her 28-year-old son was crushed Saturday morning while fishing alone at the Hammond Marina jetty in Astoria, Ore. He now faces an eight-hour facial reconstruction surgery Thursday at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland, where he is being treated for severe injuries including a broken jaw.
“His face got smashed. He’s almost unrecognizable,” Mindy Little said, adding with amazement, “It’s a miracle that my son is alive.”
The accident unfolded around 7 a.m. When a rock suddenly gave way beneath Joe Little. His grandmother, Kelly Simonson, recounted his final moments before the boulder overtook him. “He said that he felt it start to move and he put his feet down to stop it, but the boulder was huge, and he slipped down and it just went over him,” Simonson said.
Trapped beneath the high tide line with water threatening to drown him, Little found a critical lifeline: his Bluetooth earbuds remained connected to his phone. He managed to activate Siri and place a 911 call, a maneuver his family credited with saving his life.
Sgt. Dylan McCoy of the Warrenton Police Department described the challenge of locating Little in the rugged terrain. Officers tracked his position by honking their car horns while a dispatcher relayed the audio over the phone to gauge whether they were drawing nearer, McCoy said.
Police then deployed a drone, which revealed the grim scene: Little crushed beneath the massive boulder with only his upper body and feet visible. Fire officials proceeded cautiously to avoid causing further harm. “They removed some of the smaller ones and that allowed them to move him from underneath the extremely large boulder which had trapped him,” McCoy said.
The terrain proved too treacherous for a ground evacuation, prompting local officials to call the U.S. Coast Guard. Guardsmen descended from a helicopter onto the jetty around 9 a.m. And hoisted Little out in a gurney, according to dramatic footage released by the USCG.
Little’s reliance on voice-activated technology to escape a life-threatening predicament underscores how a routine piece of consumer electronics became an emergency tool. The Bluetooth connection that let him reach Siri without use of his hands bridged the gap between isolation and rescue as the tide rose around him.
The incident has drawn attention to the unpredictable hazards of coastal rock formations, where shifting geology can transform a solitary fishing trip into a desperate struggle for survival within seconds.
Little remains at OHSU as medical teams prepare for the extensive reconstructive procedure scheduled for Thursday.