ATV rider in good condition after three nights trapped

A 66-year-old Athol man who had been missing for several days was listed in good condition Monday at Kootenai Health after being found less than a quarter mile from his home by a family on an outing.

Howard Coates was found around 5:15 p.m. Sunday south of Silverwood pinned between his ATV and a tree not far from a trail on private land. His wife had reported him missing late Thursday.

He was airlifted by Life Flight to Kootenai Health and treated for non-life threatening injuries, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office.

Coates had been missing since about 7 p.m. Thursday from his North Ponderosa Street home after leaving barefooted on a four-wheeler wearing pajama pants.

His wife said he left the residence on a 2004 Camo Bombardier Outlander ATV.

“We didn’t know the direction of travel,” Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ryan Higgins said. “We focused on the trails and roads he might have gone on.”

The sheriff’s office, along with the Civil Air Patrol, Spokane County and local search and rescue units scoured a large swath of land — more than 40 square miles — from Athol to Garwood and east to the Coeur d’Alene National Forest during daylight hours between Thursday and Sunday, without results.

Because the area is heavily used by four-wheelers and ribboned with trails, some of them leading into the mountains, crews searched private and public land and used a drone to peer past mountain overlooks, Higgins said.

“To see if he had gone over the edge,” Higgins added.

Deputies received witness reports, but they proved fruitless.

“We had a couple people who said they thought they saw him,” Higgins said.

It was a family traveling on a little-used trail with ATVs Sunday afternoon on private land south of Silverwood who came upon what appeared to be a crash. They went to investigate and found Coates pinned between his machine and a tree.

“He was conscious and alert,” Higgins said.

Higgins said it looked as if Coates, who had recently suffered a stroke, may have been riding sideways across an incline when his machine rolled.

“It is believed he has been in this position since late Thursday night,” the sheriff’s office’s news release said.

Coates may have suffered broken ribs in the crash.

“He was cognitive,” Higgins said. “He knew what was going on.”