Fuel Drink Not What Musher Had in Mind

While many of the world’s top mushers are preparing for the historic 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race that begins March 3, some are inching along in the grueling race that precedes it: the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest, which this year runs from Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory to Fairbanks, Alaska.

With so much jumbled ice on the trail, it has been rough going since the race began Feb. 11. Much rougher for some than others.

A rookie musher named Sig Stormo was forced to drop out at the halfway point in Dawson City in the Yukon Sunday after he mistakenly drank from a juice bottle filled with methanol used for stove fuel.

Stormo was airlifted first to a hospital in Whitehorse, then to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. He spent most of the week in intensive care, after having his stomach pumped and being tube-fed charcoal to absorb the potentially deadly chemical.

“I had just pulled into the checkpoint [in Dawson City] after 36 hours on the trail. It was midnight, I was tired and thirsty and asked where the water was, and somebody told me it was on the table,” Stormo said. “I grabbed the bottle and started swigging--now, I can down a Pepsi in a couple of swigs--and immediately felt this soothing kind of burn. I spit it out and saw that I was spitting out blood.”

Stormo, 39, a commercial fisherman from Soldotna, Alaska, had been running his first race, without sponsors, in memory of his daughter, Jessica, who was killed in a car accident a year ago at age 16.