On Tuesday night, about a dozen members of the family received first-hand the painful experience of Beverly, 69, who had been rescued and airlifted to a Reno hospital hours earlier. Ronnie, her 70-year-old husband, had not survived. He died in his wife’s arms on Monday, eight or nine days after their vehicle stuck in a ditch on a mountain in central Nevada, leaving them stranded. Beverly Barker announced the news in a video call to family members. Their nephew Travis Peters told the Washington Post that everyone burst into tears when his aunt appeared on screen. “My cousin rang the phone,” said Peters, 49. “Then, to everyone’s surprise, my aunt Beverly was sitting in the passenger seat of the car right next to her.” Beverly had survived a nightmare on Red Mountain, where she and her husband were trapped without blankets, food or water. The couple and their RV headed off the main road with their GPS in late March, sending them to the mountains. When the RV fell into a ditch, they seized the SUV they were towing. The vehicle then got stuck in the mud. Unexpectedly, Ronnie Barker died several days later as a helpless Beverly watched him take his last breath. The retired couple traveled the country regularly in their 2015 RV. They headed to Tucson on their way back to the Midwest after visiting their grandchildren in Oregon, but on March 29, the couple’s friends called the family to report that the Barkers they had not shown up and could not contact them. This prompted one of the couple’s daughters to contact the authorities to report them as missing. Family members tried to persuade Nevada authorities to issue a Silver Alert, which would alert people in the area that the elderly were is missing. That alert did not go out for nearly a week, Peters said, despite repeated requests. “It hurts,” Peters told The Post. “My uncle had to be [rescued] with her the steps had been taken in time “. The Esmeralda County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to questions from The Post about why no immediate warning was issued. Peters said the family was informed it was because the Barkers were out of state. Beverly, while communicating with her family, recounted how they ended up trapped at the top of Red Mountain. The couple was in their RV when the GPS told them to get off the main road and had them circle for about an hour. By then, unbeknownst to them, the couple had reached the top of Red Mountain. About an hour later, the RV got stuck in a ditch and the couple decided to camp there for the night. The next day, they unhooked their SUV and tried to follow in the footsteps of the RV to return to the road they had come on. But the tracks became difficult to follow, again allowing them to circulate in circles. Then the SUV got stuck in the mud. The couple had no supplies. “They did not think about what could happen,” Peters told The Post. “. They had not realized how far they had climbed that mountain.” For the next two days, Beverly said in the video call, they tried to send a message and email to their family, but the messages did not pass. So Ronnie and Beverly decided to sit in the car and wait. Ronnie started honking several times a day hoping someone would hear their SOS message. Someone would come soon to save them, the couple thought. Ronnie’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly. The Air Force veteran had been diagnosed with multiple cancers after being exposed to Agent Orange, a herbicide that can lead to serious health problems during the Vietnam War. He had part of a lung removed and was having trouble breathing, Peters said. The high altitude was proving difficult and Ronnie was getting weaker and weaker. Beverly, known as Bev, is diabetic and uses a walker and cane most of the time due to joint problems. Keep getting out of the car to fill the plastic wrappers of the N95 mask with snow so that they have water when it melts. “When Bev was traveling up the hill to get to the snow, she was just praying because she was so scared. [thinking]”If I fall, no one will be able to pick me up,” Peters told The Post. Ronnie, a devout Christian, asked Beverly to read Bible passages on her phone as they rested and huddled together in the back seat of the car to stay warm. As the days passed and the couple still saw no signs of rescuers in the area, Ronnie’s health deteriorated. He spent time watching jets flying in the clear blue sky, and at night, he looked at the stars with his wife. In a way, as he reconciled with death, he was accompanied by his three loves: astronomy, aircraft and Beverly, Peters said. At one point, Beverly told Ronnie that it was okay for her to die. He deserved to rest, Peters said. “They were both at peace with it,” he added. Ronnie breathed his last in her arms at 15:12 local time on Monday, Beverly recalled during the family call. “He did not go into details about grief and sadness,” Peters said. “I do not think he had tears to cry just from dehydration.” Beverly continued to honk the car as an SOS signal. Rescuers heard her honking after finding the RV on Tuesday around 4pm, according to Peters and the sheriff’s office. The couple was then found in their SUV about two miles away. It had been eight or nine days – Beverly was unsure of the exact date when she finally spoke to the family after she was rescued, Peters said. No one expected Bev to be on Tuesday’s video call, he said. “Everyone started shouting that we loved her,” Peters added. “It was a reunion over the phone.” By the end of the call, Beverly and her daughter had already arrived a hotel where he would spend the next two days recovering and slowly returning to solid consumption. “It was overwhelming for her,” Peters told The Post. “He showed incredible strength.”
