Oklahoma City couple needed rescuing from sand dunes after marriage proposal

Ross Vandaveer secretly planned to propose to his girlfriend Karen Renshaw during a short hike on the White Sands National Monument near Las Cruces, N.M. Vandaveer has relatives in Las Cruces and grew up visiting White Sands.

“It's just a really beautiful place, and I figured it was the best setting that I knew of,” Vandaveer said.

His proposal on the sand dunes and her “yes” to it were the only parts of the excursion that went as planned.

The couple got lost and began hiking with their three dogs, a blue heeler named Grizzwald and miniature Australian shepherds named Suzie and Stitch.

They were out of the liter of water they brought for the expected short hike, and they were only dressed in light clothing. Temperatures had fallen below freezing after a sunny day with highs in the 50s or 60s.

The rescue involved the National Park Service, the Alamo West Volunteer Fire Department, a couple of Air Force F-22 Raptors — fighter jets — already doing a training mission and some of the military's radio remote-controlled drones that were used to pinpoint their exact location.

“It was just kind of shocking for it to be that much of a production,” said Renshaw, a 45-year-old surgical technologist for Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City, in a phone interview on Monday. They had even laughed at the idea of a helicopter picking up them and their dogs.

“I thought it would be a dune buggy.”