BISMARCK, N.D. – The ordeal endured by a Mandaree woman who spent two frigid January nights outdoors in Theodore Roosevelt National Park after a vehicle chase is not over, as she faces the amputation of a foot because of frostbite damage.
Gabriella Perez-Goodbird, 20, was so affected by the exposure to the elements that she had “stopped feeling pain, stopped being cold” by the time she was found by two park visitors, she said in federal court in Bismarck on Monday as she testified at the trial of Clancey Lone Fight, 33, of Mandaree, who faces seven charges stemming from the chase. Losing all sensation of cold and pain is a symptom of severe frostbite, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The two were in a vehicle that fled authorities in New Town on Jan. 24, Perez-Goodbird testified. The pair in Watford City got in a pickup owned by Lone Fight’s father and drove to Belfield, where they spent the night. Lone Fight the next day told her the pickup was “hot” and they had to get a different one. They drove to the Billings County highway shop, where he told her to look for a vehicle with keys in it, Perez-Goodbird said.
They switched their belongings into a white 2001 Chevrolet pickup a short distance from the shop, she testified. The pickup was later reported stolen. Lone Fight with Perez-Goodbird as a passenger eluded law enforcement — at times going off-road — until abandoning the pickup at a section of impassable road in the park, she said.
