Deceased Is Dustin Self Lost Or Just Wandering?

[Dakota]

At this point, nobody knows if 19-year-old Dustin Self is lost or has deliberately stepped away from civilization, said his mother, Tammy Self, of Oklahoma City, Okla.

"He told us he was going to be gone for a few months, and he would be off the grid," she said in a telephone interview. "We don't know if we should be really worried or not."

A search party combed the snow-covered, 9,733-foot fault-block peak's south side Tuesday after a rancher found a 1999 Toyota pickup truck belonging to Self, said Missy Ousley, 9-1-1 dispatcher for the Harney County Sheriff's Office in Burns.

"It was off an embankment" at about 5,100-feet elevation in a remote area where the snow remains deep, she said. "We have done a ground search as far as the road would permit us to travel."

Self originally planned to go to the Klamath Falls–Medford-Ashland area, said his mother, and he had spoken of joining a religious group called the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen. His ex-girlfriend talked to him by phone and told Tammy Self that while her son was en route, his GPS accidentally led him to Steens Mountain.

Her son was inspired by the 2007 biographical film "Into the Wild," about the travels of the late Christopher McCandless in the Alaskan wilderness. Believing himself "corrupted by civilization," McCandless destroyed his credit cards, gave away his $24,000 savings and abandoned his car, ultimately to take up residence in an abandoned school bus north of Denali National Park and Preserve, where he died from accidentally eating a poisonous root.

Self said her son is 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds and very fit. He was well equipped to survive in the outdoors, Self said. He had a sleeping bag rated for minus-40 degrees, warm clothing and good boots. She thinks he had food in his backpack and carried a large knife.

"He read a lot about how to survive," she said, adding that walking away from his disabled pickup,"would not be odd for him."

Self first came to the attention of the Harney County Sheriff's Office a month ago when his father, Victor Self, reported his son was missing. Dustin Self's ex-girlfriend had told the the family that he telephoned her to say he was lost.

"He did sound worried, and that is why we started worrying," his mother said.
[...]

"We are going to kill him when we see him," said his worried mother.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2013/04/steens_mountain_search_missing.html

Dustin Self, 19, left suburban Oklahoma City a month ago after becoming interested in churches practicing a South American religion that uses a hallucinogenic tea as a sacrament.

The Harney County sheriff’s office says a search began on Tuesday for Dustin on the north end of Steens Mountain after a rancher found his truck had slid off a backcountry road.
[...]

The teen was well-prepared with gear he bought just before leaving, but had little experience of life in the wild beyond family camping trips, his parents said.

'He is not a survivalist,' said his father, Victor Self, a manager at a box plant in Oklahoma City. 'He is a very urban child.'

His parents last heard from him March 15, when he called from the parking lot of a motel in northern Nevada where he was spending the night in the cab of his pickup.

The next day, Dustin called his girlfriend in Austin, Texas, to say he was lost after his GPS had sent him onto a road along the east side of Steens Mountain in the high desert of southeastern Oregon.

Ousley said a storekeeper in Fields recalled him asking for directions to Lakeview, which would have taken him a different direction than where his truck was found.

A religious young man raised in a non-denominational Protestant church, Dustin had been searching for meaning in his life, his mother said.

He read books like 'Human Race: Get Off Your Knees,' by David Icke, a former British sports reporter whose books about what he believes is really controlling life on earth are admired by conspiracy theorists.

The last movie Dustin watched was Into The Wild about a young man who gives up his worldly goods to live in the Alaskan wilderness.
[...]

A clean-cut bodybuilder in high school, he had lately grown his hair long and wore a bandanna around his head.

'I think he got a lot off the Internet,' his mother said.

Tammy Self said her son is a vegetarian, with no desire to kill animals to eat.

'He thought he was going to eat berries,' she said. 'We tried to tell him, berries don't grow in wintertime.'

His father called the Harney County Sheriff's Office on March 17, but a search along the route from Fields to Lakeview turned up nothing.

He also filed a missing person report with his local police.

Then on Monday, Dustin's truck was found. His backpack and camping gear were gone, but the keys, his computer, his GPS and some of his supply of protein bars and other food had been left behind.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...derness-movie-Into-The-Wild-goes-missing.html

 

[Tundratot]

FFS, it's not as easy to live off the land as people think. I sincerely hope this kid is alive and comes to his senses soon.

 

[cubby]

I've read alot about brain surgeoning but I hope to high hell that nobody ever thinks I could do it. Same with surviving in the wilderness, reading about it and doing it are so far apart as to be dangerous, the movie he watched did not end well either.

 

[Dakota]

The sheriff heading up the search for a young Oklahoma man missing in the wilds of southeastern Oregon says the young man was hallucinating the last time he telephoned his family.

He also said he was seeing plants coming out of the ground and running in a call to his girlfriend.

Nineteen-year-old Dustin Self has been missing a month since setting out from his family home outside Oklahoma City to test himself against the wilderness.
[...]

Sheriff Dave Glerup said he thinks Self is either dead or walked off Steens Mountain and hitched a ride somewhere after his truck got stuck on a backcountry track.

http://www.kboi2.com/news/local/Dustin-Self-Into-Wild-Oregon-Oklahoma-203910211.html

 

[Krystal]

I would normally scream that he was on drugs but honestly given his age (19) it sounds like a break with reality like his first schizophrenic episode, which my understanding is that it generally manifests in the late teens and early 20s.

 

[Dakota]

I would normally scream that he was on drugs but honestly given his age (19) it sounds like a break with reality like his first schizophrenic episode, which my understanding is that it generally manifests in the late teens and early 20s.

I think it was more likely drugs. He already had harebrained ideas of living off the land and joining up with a church that uses hallucinogenics as a sacrament.

 

[Dakota]

Harney County Sheriff Dave Glerup said Thursday he hopes this new photo of 19-year-old Dustin Self of Piedmont, Okla., will generate better leads than the last one, taken from his driver's license.

Provided by his family, photo released Thursday shows Self in March with longer hair and a beard.

Glerup says reported sightings of Self in Oregon, Washington and Maine haven't produced any leads to the teenager, who told his family he wanted to test himself against the wilderness.

Meanwhile, another helicopter search of the area on Steens Mountain where Self's truck was abandoned found nothing, either. Another ground search is planned the first weekend in May.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2013/04/investigators_hope_new_photo_o.html

Harney County Sheriff Dave Glerup said he figures Self was more likely to head downhill off the mountain than to climb a steep grade to go farther into the backcountry. And he could well have hitched a ride from the paved county road along the east side of the mountain, the sheriff said.

"The only thing concerning to me is he hasn't called his parents," Glerup said. "It sounds like he usually did that in a timely fashion. I don't know if he had issues with his cellphone. We haven't had any activity on it."

Glerup said once the snow melts, which could take two weeks to a month, searchers will return to the area where Self left his truck.
[...]

He told his parents he wanted to test himself against the wilderness, like in the movie "Into The Wild," and check out two Oregon churches that practice a South American religion that uses a hallucinogenic tea as a sacrament. A founder of the Ashland branch said neither of them had been in contact with Self.

Authorities have said that on his last call to his father and girlfriend, Self was hallucinating, perhaps from sleep deprivation or the attention deficit disorder medication he had been taking to stay awake while driving.

http://www.postbulletin.com/news/na...cle_a264b760-bd8a-522f-8e13-f55f70efd929.html

Self's camping gear was missing, suggesting he left the truck and set off on foot, the sheriff said.

Self was "pretty emphatic," according to his parents, that he wanted to follow the model of the late Christopher McCandless, who died in the Alaskan wilderness and whose adventures were chronicled in the 2007 film, "Into the Wild." McCandless abandoned his car and gave away all his money before setting off on the tragic wilderness adventure that led to his death in an abandoned school bus.

Self wanted to live off the grid, Glerup said.

"Even though he had no experience," the sheriff said, "he wanted to try it."

Searchers have been torn between the possibilities that Self continued climbing Steens Mountain after leaving his disabled pickup at 5,100 feet elevation, or descended to the desert floor and hitchhiked out of the area, the sheriff said.

"Most people take the line of least resistance, and that is downhill," said Glerup.
[...]

A big concern for searchers is that he may have been taking medicine intended to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADD/ADHD, to help him stay awake during his drive west. According to Self's father, Glerup said, the youth appeared to be hallucinating during a telephone conversation before his disappearance, possibly in reaction to the ADD/ADHD medicine.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2013/04/steens_mountain_search_repored.html

 

[Obsolete]

Dude ate the wrong kind (or right kind) of shrooms.

 

[Krystal]

ADD/ADHD meds= prescription meth, as in Oxy= prescription heroin.

 

[Abroad]

ADD/ADHD meds= prescription meth, as in Oxy= prescription heroin.

My understanding was always that what they prescribe for ADHD was amfetamine under a fancy, alternative trade name?

 

[cubby]

I remember about 20 years ago my son's pediatrician prescribed something for him for ADD that the insurance complany refused to fill because they said it was a diet drug, so I had to go back and get a prescription for Ritalin and that they filled. I want to say it was Dexadrine, but I may be wrong. Would that cause hallucinations?

 

[Krystal]

ADD and ADHD meds are simply prescription amphetamines, in a true sufferer of either disorder they have a calming effect but if you do not have either it's like smoking crack or meth or salt, depending on your tolerance.

I don't have anyone with ADD/ADHD but as a recovering drug addict this is the shit you learn during your drug "education". I was strictly a pill popper, although ready to start to shoot up (yes, I was really far gone) so I learned what all the pills would do for me so I knew what to ask the doctor for. Methadone also acts as an upper for someone into downers (I loved my luudes and opiates) so I took Methadone for the pick me up for awhile, never got into anything stronger for an upper, I liked my downs too much.

 

[Whisper]

Remains Of Dustin Self, Missing Oklahoma Teen, Believed To Have Been Found

— Remains found by a hunter this month in sparsely populated southeast Oregon appear to be those of an Oklahoma teenager who went missing last year after telling his parents he wanted to test himself against the wilderness, like in the movie "Into The Wild."
[[...]
said Friday that personal identification found with the remains indicated it was 19-year-old Dustin Self of Piedmont, Oklahoma.

The remains were discovered Oct. 7 on the north end of remote Steens Mountain. They have been sent to a medical examiner for further identification.
[...]
reported missing in the Steens Mountain area in spring 2013, launching extensive searches. His pickup truck was discovered about 7 miles from where the remains were discovered.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/24/remains-of-dustin-self-mi_n_6045176.html?utm_hp_ref=crime

 

[ScarlettHarlot]

Oh man, I just knew this would happen. His poor family. He only made it seven miles away from his truck? Those meds he was taking must have really fucked him up. Poor kid.

 

[Valasca]

I wonder what cause of death was. Not sure we'll ever know.

 

[Whisper]

Questions remain in death of Piedmont teen found in Oregon

What exactly drove an Oklahoma teenager to travel to Oregon, leave his truck and survival gear behind and disappear on Steens Mountain will remain a mystery.
But at least friends and family of Dustin Self know what happened to the 19-year-old after he was last seen in March 2013.

A hunter, trying to cut through an aspen thicket to pursue a deer, found Self's remains Oct. 7 on a remote section of the mountain southwest of Burns. His remains showed the young man had hunkered down in the trees and stripped his clothes before he died. The find ended the hope his parents held that Self had slipped "off the grid" and would someday reach out to them again.

"It is comforting to have some closure to it," Victor Self, Dustin's 50-year-old father in Piedmont, Oklahoma, said.
[...]

http://www.koco.com/news/questions-remain-in-death-of-piedmont-teen-found-in-oregon/30344732