When authorities found the Redmond man who ultimately died from prolonged exposure to the cold Sunday, he was frozen to rocks below a small cliff, the engine still running in his Toyota 4Runner and a warning buzzer sounding from the vehicle’s open door. It was 2 degrees and he was still alive.

The details, contained in Redmond Police report released by the Deschutes County District Attorney’s Office on Friday, offer a frightening picture of what happened.

On Monday, the victim was identified as Philip Gerhart, 38, of Redmond.

Redmond Fire & Rescue believe he drove down the alley sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning and was exposed to the bitter cold for hours. He would die later that Sunday at St. Charles Bend, and is the only known person to have died during the recent cold snap in Central Oregon.

Redmond Sgt. Jonny Dickson was first dispatched at about 8:15 a.m. to a vehicle crash near 113 SW Canyon Drive. From the skatepark on southwest Black Butte Boulevard Dickson saw a silver 4Runner “hanging over the edge of the cliff,” he wrote in his report.

A caller had told emergency dispatchers there was a vehicle over the edge of Dry Canyon Trail. The 4Runner was at the end of an alley off W. Antler Avenue. Multiple homes sit on each side of the tight alley, which is used to access power lines and ends at a steep cliff just above the trail and Weigand Dog Park.

Dickson then made his way over to the alley directly north of 113 SW Canyon Drive and followed vehicle tracks in the fresh snow which led him to the 4Runner. The vehicle was completely covered in snow as approximately 13 inches had fallen the past 24 hours.

“As I pulled up to the vehicle, I got out of my patrol car and noticed that there were no foot tracks near the vehicle,” Dickson wrote. “The driver door was open, and I did not see anyone near the vehicle, nor could I find any sign of foot travel. I assumed whoever drove the vehicle here may have climbed down the canyon wall.”

At the edge of the cliff, he looked down.

“I noticed a human figure in a crevice about 5 feet below from where I stood,” Dickson wrote. “It was at that time determined the driver of the vehicle exited and fell approximately 5 feet down into the crevice wall.”

Dickson called for medics and proceeded to climb down into the crevice to help the man. When he reached him, Dickson found the man was not wearing shoes, only black socks. He was breathing shallowly, and unresponsive. As Dickson tried to wake the man, he noticed his eyes were open.

Dickson said at first he had a hard time moving the man because of how he was positioned and because he was frozen to the rocks, he wrote. He eventually secured a strap under his armpit, and the man began to moan.

“Eventually I was able to pull the male’s left arm free from the frozen ground and deploy the strap under his left armpit as well,” Dickson wrote. “At this time, I also noticed what appeared to be a bump on his forehead that I believe was a result of the fall from the vehicle.”

Once Redmond Fire & Rescue arrived, crews began working on extracting the man from the crevice. Dickson wrote the man’s shoes were later found under his body after he was removed from the rocks.

An examination of the man’s vehicle showed his right rear tire had blown out and the front destroyed. Warm clothing and a car seat were found inside the vehicle.

“The front driver tire was suspended between the initial cliff wall and the secondary cliff wall,” Dickson wrote. “Because of the separation and cliff wall, this produced a hole in which Gerhart was able to fall into.”

The report said there was no indication that the man was speeding and it is unknown if he was wearing his seatbelt when he crashed.

Dickson concluded he believed the man’s condition was a result of falling from the vehicle and exposure to the elements.