According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Rena Ose, 68, started feeling an odd pain in her chest and arms, but thought it was just a bad flare-up of her gastric ulcer. The pain persisted for a couple of days, and it became clear to Rena and her husband Duane that they needed to get to a hospital.
But they live at "Ose Mountain," a remote homestead, one of the last created by the federal Homestead Act. It sits about 15 miles outside of Denali Park and 77 miles north of Mount McKinley. The Oses' three-story cabin has no phone, and they depend on satellite Internet and the video calling service Skype to reach the outside world.
The day they decided to get help, Skype was down, so they couldn't call for rescue that way. Instead, they put out a message for help on their Facebook social network. A friend they've never met in person and who lives in Massachussetts, Bonnie Jepson, answered and arranged for an emergency charter flight from Ose Mountain to Fairbanks by Wright Air Service.
After arriving at the hospital and being diagnosed with the lingering effects of an untreated heart attack, Rena underwent surgery. She's recovering in Fairbanks Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit, but is expected to be well enough to continue recovering in Nenana soon.
The Oses say they're extremely grateful for Jepson and call her the "hero of the hour."
"When you live out in the Bush like that, your best friends are strangers," Rena said.
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