HEADLINES & HISTORY SINCE 1879 Goldendale, Washington
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2024
Vol. 145 No. 38
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Commissioner candidates meet in Dallesport event RODGER NICHOLS FOR THE SENTINEL
SAVED BY AN ORGAN DONOR: Carl Coolidge, shown here in July this year, was near death’s door.
Klickitat man receives double transplant LOU MARZELES EDITOR Carl Coolidge has owned Canyon Market in Klickitat since 2007. In 2021, he also bought the gas station there to ensure folks in Klickitat could still get gas after the previous owner retired. Klickitat is in Carl’s blood; his family has a long history in the town. His grandfather was a Lutheran minister there, and his great-grandfather worked at the mill for more than 45 years. But Carl inherited a serious medical condition that plagued him for years—and that recently nearly cost him his life. He was put on a wait list for kidney and liver transplants. Miraculously, both became available to him very soon after his name went on the list. “This has been something I’ve known I’ve had for a long time,” he recalls. “It’s an inherited condition called non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. I inherited it from my mom. She eventually passed away from it when she was 80. Sometimes it’ll flare up, and other times you’ll live a long life and pass away from something else.” On January 5 this year, the condition flared up. “It was pretty bad,” Carl says. His doctor told him his body was holding a lot of fluid and he would probably need a liver transplant. He was in and out of hospitals for a month and a half this year already. He hoped that was the end of it. But it got worse. “I would go in weekly for these [procedures in which] they put a drain in you and drain out liquid,” Carl says. “I had anywhere from eight to 14 liters a week of liquid being drawn off my body. It meant my liver was getting worse. Finally I got a referral to OHSU [Oregon Health & Science University] in the early part of May. We went in for the initial consultation, which is where they interview you and start doing some testing to see if you
qualify to be a liver transplant patient at OHSU.” That process could take months to go through all the tests. But Carl’s situation was dire enough that the first doctor who saw him at OSHU immediately admitted him. Over the next five days, he experienced a backup of toxins in his system that made his brain foggy and gave him the shakes. Doctors were able to clear that up. They also found a spot of cancer on his liver. Testing revealed it had not metastasized. Still, the liquid buildup in his body was getting worse. It was determined he was qualified for a liver transplant—and then his kidney started acting up. It was decided he needed a simultaneous liver and kidney transplant. Ideally, he was told both of those should from the same donor to minimize organ rejection. He went on the organ donor waiting list on July 16. “The one thing they tell you throughout the whole process is there are no guarantees as to when you may get a call” for transplants, Carl says. “It depends on donor matching and everything. In my mind, I gave it a nine-month period, thinking I would hear something within nine months.” He based the timeframe on average times to find donors and the seriousness of his condition. Carl took stock of his life. “I was sitting around trying to get my head wrapped around this whole process,” he remembers. “I didn’t party hard, I didn’t drink a lot of liquor. I didn’t smoke and do drugs and all that. I did none of that. So it wasn’t because I was abusive to my body that I got to this point. It was genetic and inherited.” At five in the afternoon on July 18 this year—just two days after he went on the donor list— he got the call. “It was from OHSU,” he says, “and the surgeon found the perfect match for me. I needed to get
See Transplant page A8
NAOMI JAMES
MYSTERY COMES TO GOLDENDALE: Scooby-Dooers will be glad to know the giant canine was in town last week in the Mystery Machine. Does having a dog license also allow a dog to drive?
Candidates for Klickitat County Board of Commissioners squared off in a candidate’s night event September 12 in Dallesport. Amanda Kitchings, Independent, and Todd Andrews, Republican, were vying for Position No. 1, the vacant seat on the board due to incumbent Jacob Anderson’s decision not to run again. Position No. 3 incumbent Dan Christopher is challenged by a former commissioner, Ron Ihrig. Both are Republicans. Following are abstracted responses to some of the questions asked at the meeting. Should the county be able to raise property taxes three percent without a vote of the people? Ron Ihrig - Currently the county can do one percent without a vote. The proposal to raise it to three percent did not pass the state legislature. At the meeting last November, Dan did not vote for the tax lev, trying to shut government down. Dan Christopher - We’re the
only Republican county that’s urging the Washington State Association of Counties to lobby the legislature on behalf of raising the amount to three percent. The WSAC motion only passed by one vote. If you give me a seatmate who will vote with me, we a can rescind that vote and stop WSAC from lobbying Todd Andrew - Some people who have had their homes paid off find that their taxes are now as high or higher than their mortgage payments were. Sherman County does a great job. They have a lot of fundraisers and don’t raise their taxes. Amanda Kitchings - Taxes are not my specialty. There are many people who can’t afford to live here in the growing socioeconomic divide. I know the county has lost a lot of funds with the landfill losing two contracts, but three percent is drastic. Todd’s right, it hurts families. Dallesport has a problem with nuisance properties that reduce property values for all. Would you increase the budget for code enforcement? Ron Ihrig - When I was com-
missioner, we put in the nuisance department. The problem is to follow through when we increase the budget. At this time, I can’t answer that. It needs to be looked at. Dan Christopher - No, I won’t because we don’t have the money. And I would have to question how many active nuisance complaints you actually have. Rather than spend 50 grand on cleanup you’re never gonna get back in taxes, we worked with Republic, got 300 vouchers that code enforcement can give to people to make a free trip to the dump. Todd Andrew - That’s a rights issue. It is complaint driven. Some of the places have problems because someone has an illness or mental problems. They have personal property rights, so unless there’s rats or some major odor, that’s being invasive. It should be the community helps them out, maybe church groups. Amanda Kitchings - I haven’t seen the budget, and I don’t want to give you some baloney answer. Todd hit the nail on the head. Have any of the candidates
See Meeting page A8
CONTRIBUTED
WHERE TO GO: A 12-man party from Goldendale exploring the wilds of Mt. Rainier were lost for a time near a glacial slope.
Lost on Mt. Rainier with ice, wasps, and a sense of adventure JORDAN MAYBERRY FOR THE SENTINEL A dozen young men, most from Goldendale, planned an overnight backpacking trip set for this past Labor Day weekend. The adventure turned out to include getting thoroughly lost, trying to traverse a glacial slope, and a relentless onslaught of angry wasps. On the appointed day, four cars crossed through the gates of White River Ranger Station, east of Mount Rainier. A key coordinator of the trip, Joshua Pifer, says, “We began on Owyhigh trail and went about four and a half miles to our campsite. Little did we know the adventures of the next day. “We set up camp, shared conversation, had plenty of water to cook with—honestly, we were glamping. I kind of knew the trip was going to take a turn. I had sort of a premonition because there was an animal outside of our tents rustling around. I didn’t know what it was doing, but I was terrified, and I had a feeling that the next day I would be terrified as well.” That morning, the group packed up camp and headed out for the day-long expedition. “We continued on Owyhigh Trail,” Pifer recalls. “We descended into a meadow, enjoyed the beautiful
scenery and the mountains surrounding us. This was where we were to leave the trail and enter onto a path that was supposed to connect to another trail. This was a 13.6-mile loop we were planning to take. We gained elevation pretty rapidly.” Once at the top of the trail, Pifer remembers an amazing view. “There was Mount Rainier in the background and deep valleys.” The group descended into something Pifer describes as a bowl of glacial rock. Now off charted path, some hikers worried about making it across the ice. “Fortunately, none of us tripped, but there were plenty of hazards on the way down,” Pifer says. Time, once an afterthought, was now becoming a concern. “It was almost noon at this point, and we were wondering if we were going to be able to make it through the rest of the loop. We knew we were approaching a glacier, which we wanted to climb, but we had our doubts.” The glacier covered a lake beneath it. They started scaling uphill. “Once we reached the glacier, we saw there were crevices all lengthwise through it, especially near the lake it sits over, and chunks were breaking off into the lake.” The calving ice agitated the water, and large waves crashed against the rock.
One hiker, trying to chart potential routes on the glacier, was shouted down from it and returned to the lakeside. “That whole area was giving us the feeling that we needed to turn around, in part in disappointment and in part in relief,” Pifer says. “We turned around, down the steep terrain, and begin to follow this creek, Wright Creek. On the map we were looking at, it looked like it led to the trail we wanted to get to. We thought ‘Oh, it’s a creek, it shouldn’t be too bad, right?’ Oh, no. We had to navigate waterfalls—but the fun didn’t really start until the wasps.” The wooded thicket alongside Wright Creek was not only of a nearly unnavigable steepness and density, but it also had heavy populations of aggressive wasps. “We uncovered multiple hives, and then on one of our descents to cross the creek, we had to go down a steep hill. I stumbled on a wasp nest and immediately was swarmed. Instead of carefully going down the steep slope with a waterfall at the bottom, I jumped. I just wanted to not be stung anymore.” Though he survived the leap, other hikers later remarked they thought this was the most dangerous moment during the whole ordeal. One witness said, “When Josh was falling, I thought, ‘This
See Trip page A8