JACKSON, Wyo. — Teton County Search and Rescue (TCSAR) announced that it was mobilized on Friday night, Sept. 27, to assist an injured hunter on Mount Leidy in Bridger-Teton National Forest.
At 7:30 p.m. on Friday, TCSAR volunteers were contacted about the hunter, a 66-year-old man visiting from California who fell down the steep north face of Leidy. The injury left him unable to stand or walk. His party called 911.
Nine TCSAR volunteers were dispatched, unable to use the helicopter in the dark. The team drove a TCSAR truck towing an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), utilizing Forest Service roads to approach the patient, who was located in a “very remote” part of the forest in “extremely thick timber,” per TCSAR’s report. When the truck couldn’t go any farther, some of the volunteers got into the ATV and drove it up an old, out-of-use logging road, but multiple downed trees blocked the road.
“When the RZR became stymied by deadfall and timber, two volunteers made a fast track through the forest to the patient in order to provide initial care and comfort,” TCSAR’s report reads.
The rest of the volunteers hiked to the patient, carrying in a wheeled litter. The terrain was so full of deadfall that volunteers spent three hours getting the wheeled litter to the patient. They succeeded in packing him into the litter at 2:30 a.m., then spent another “few hours” carrying him back to the ATV. The patient was transported back to the TCSAR truck, which took him into Jackson to receive medical attention.
Volunteers got back to the TCSAR hangar at 5:30 a.m.
