Lost truck driver survives days with no food or water, refused to steal potato chips from cargo

LA GRANDE, Ore. — A missing Oregon truck driver survived for four days lost in the wilderness without taking a single item from his cargo – a trailer filled with potato chips.

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According to The Associated Press, Jacob Cartwright, 22, of La Grande, had been missing since Tuesday, when he was hauling the chips from Portland to Nyssa. He accidentally programmed the wrong destination into his GPS, then fixed the address later after he noticed the mistake. That's when the GPS "directed him to take a U.S. Forest Service road that started out paved but eventually became impassible," the AP reported. His truck then got stuck and his cellphone died.

Roy Henry, Cartwright's manager at Little Trees Transportation, told the AP that the trucker, a father of two, began walking away from the scene, trying to find his way out of the snowy woods. By Saturday, after walking 36 miles with no food or water, Cartwright flagged a passing driver, who gave him a ride home.

"Cartwright's wife returned home from meeting with local officials about the search for her husband only to find him in their house," the AP reported.

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Cartwright, who was taken to the hospital, did not appear to have "too many injuries," a nurse told the AP.

According to Henry, Cartwright said he didn't take any of the potato chips to eat before he began walking because "that's the load I was hauling and I didn't want to damage the property."

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cox Media Group