The blizzard that closed Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rawlins on the night of December 21, 2024, dropped 76 centimeters of snow on the high plains in 36 hours, with sustained winds above 80 kilometers per hour. Visibility on the interstate was, at the peak of the storm, less than three meters. Wyoming Highway Patrol closed the road, but not before several dozen vehicles had been stranded between exits.

One of them was a 2014 Toyota 4Runner driven by Thomas Begaye, a 52-year-old welder from Farmington, New Mexico, who was driving home from a job in Rock Springs. He pulled into a wide shoulder at the base of Elk Mountain shortly after 9 p.m. when he could no longer see the road. He was alone in the vehicle.

He stayed in the 4Runner for four days. He was found on the morning of December 25 by a Highway Patrol trooper running a sweep with a snowplow escort. His vehicle was buried to the windows. He was alive, lucid, and able to walk to the trooper's truck with assistance.

Begaye had grown up on the Navajo Nation and had spent much of his life in remote country. He had been caught in storms before, though never one this severe and never this long. He carried, by long habit, a winter kit in the back of the 4Runner that included a sleeping bag, two wool blankets, a candle in a coffee can, matches, a spare pair of boots, three liters of water, a bag of dried meat, a bag of pinyon nuts, a small cooking pot, a folding shovel, and a tow strap.

The candle in the coffee can is the item most often singled out by winter survival instructors when his story is taught. A single candle, burned in a metal can on the floor of a sealed vehicle, can raise the interior temperature by several degrees and can supply just enough warmth to prevent hypothermia in a person properly insulated by clothing and bedding. The can prevents the candle from tipping and contains the small flame. The technique is taught in older survival manuals and is, in the era of heated seats and remote starters, largely forgotten.

The storm continued through the second day. The third day was clear but the road was not yet plowed. The fourth day, the plows reached him.

Begaye burned a candle every night. He had four. He made each one last more than 20 hours by burning it in short stretches rather than continuously, and by sitting close to the can rather than running it as ambient heat.

He ran the engine sparingly. Standard practice in a stranded vehicle is to run the engine for ten minutes every hour, with a window cracked, after clearing snow from the exhaust pipe. Begaye did this through the first night, then reduced his engine use as he became uncertain whether the exhaust pipe was clear. He chose, on the second day, to rely on the candle and on his bedding rather than on the engine. He had perhaps half a tank of fuel. He preserved most of it.

He drank his water sparingly and melted snow on the dashboard inside zip-top bags that he warmed with his body. He ate small amounts of the dried meat and the pinyon nuts twice a day. He kept a log on a notepad, recording the time, the outside temperature, his fuel level, and his food. The log, which he later gave to a regional safety publication, is sparse and practical. There is no introspection. There are times and numbers.

He moved his fingers and toes on a deliberate schedule. He did slow isometric exercises in the driver's seat to keep his core warm. He did not sleep more than three or four hours at a stretch, because he was concerned about not waking up. He listened to the radio for fifteen minutes a day, on AM, to track the storm.

The storm continued through the second day. The third day was clear but the road was not yet plowed. The fourth day, the plows reached him.

He had mild frostbite on three fingers of his left hand, which he had used to clear snow from the door seal each day. He had lost about four kilograms. He was admitted to a hospital in Laramie for observation and released after one night.

Begaye has spoken about the experience in a handful of venues, mostly at community gatherings on the Navajo Nation and in two presentations to Wyoming Department of Transportation safety meetings. He has emphasized, in each, that he survived because of habits he had built over decades, not because of any single decision he made during the storm. The kit was already in the truck. The candle was already in the can. The wool blankets were already folded behind the rear seat. The decisions during the storm were small extensions of decisions he had made years before.

He has emphasized one other thing. He chose to stay in the vehicle. He did not try to walk for help, which he has said was the impulse that nearly killed two people he knew in a similar storm in the 1990s. A vehicle, even a buried one, is a shelter. A person walking through chest-deep snow in a whiteout is not a person who arrives anywhere.

He continues to drive long distances for work. The kit is still in the back of the 4Runner. He has added a small battery-powered carbon monoxide detector, which he keeps clipped to the visor, and a personal locator beacon, which he keeps in the glove compartment.

He turned 54 in the spring of 2026. He still carries candles.