UT Grad Student and Brother Are Total Heroes

Brothers Albert and Peter Kottke were on the last leg of a backpacking trip in Gila National Forest when they happened upon a woman stuck in the wilderness, visibly weakened and alone.

It turns out that this woman, 52-year-old Carolyn Dorn, had been wandering around the 3.3-million acre forest for the past five weeks, after being trapped on the wrong side of Gila River during what was supposed to be a two-week-long camping expedition. A previous search rescue attempt found her car, but was called off two weeks ago after turning up little else.

The Kottkes, realizing that Dorn wasn't capable of making the trek out of the forest with them, left her an adequate supply of food and water ("Tang, almonds, dried apples, an energy bar, some hot soup and a little cheese"), gathered enough firewood to keep her warm, and even gave her a little light reading material (Michael Connelly's "Chasing the Dime") before setting out for help.

The two hiked 20 miles over the next two days into Silver City, a tiny New Mexico town of 10,000 once voted one of Outside magazine's "20 Dream Towns." There, they got in contact with the authorities, even providing them a marked U.S. Geological Survey map incidating where Dorn could be found. The helicopter rescue team, equipped with night vision goggles, found her the next morning, suffering from hypothermia but "perking up" and "doing well."

"It was luck that we took a longer route and went by her campsite, and it was luck that she saw us and called out to us," said Albert Kottke, a 24-year-old Geotechnical Engineering PhD candidate at UT Austin. "If I'm in a similar position someday I hope people will be there."

Should you come across the Brothers Kottke, buy these total legends a round.

Photo of Albert Kottke from MySpace, Carolyn Dorn from Local10.com