IN THIS ISSUE...

• Range Rescue

• War with Wolves

• Wildlife Damage

• World According To Hooter

EDITORIALS

• TRAILS
• GAP

He’d hauled the colt in a trailer, left the trailer on a wide spot along the back road, and ridden the colt about 2 miles upcountry. Something spooked the colt and it turned down the hill and started running. “I was in a bad place when he buggered and wheeled and headed downhill. I didn’t dare try to spin him, because I was afraid he’d fall on me. It was too steep. I figured I could ride it out down the hill and then spin him to slow him down and stop him. But things just accelerated real quick. It went from a run downhill to a buck downhill. I still didn’t dare try to spin him and I didn’t ride out the buck.”

Don doesn’t blame the colt for the accident. “It was my fault. I got myself into terrain too rough for a colt just out of the corral for the first time. I’d already spun him around probably a dozen times during that ride, to slow him. When I got on that steep sidehill and he wheeled and went down it I was worried about flipping him over on me. It was awful steep. I put myself in a bad position on a horse that hadn’t been ridden enough. I have to remember that I’m not 18 anymore!”

Don is a good rider, but he only made it halfway down the slope before he got bucked off and the colt kept going. This happened about 3:30 in the afternoon. “I landed on my arm and I got suspicious that I’d hurt it pretty bad; when I went to roll over and my arm wouldn’t follow me, I knew things weren’t right. When I did pull that arm over, I could feel the bones crunching,” Don recalls. The dogs followed the horse, then realized Don wasn’t with the horse and came back to him.

His wife Kathy works at the Post Office in Salmon. She got home from work about 5 pm and though she knew he was riding a young horse she was not too concerned that Don wasn’t home yet. By 7 o’clock she was worried. “You don’t know when to panic. I’ve been in this position all my life. You worry and wait, and about the time you’re about ready to go looking for someone they show up! You were about to call out the search and rescue! But the person you were worrying about just ended up having to do more than what they planned on. You hate to cry wolf, but you also don’t want to wait too long if someone’s out there hurt,” she says. She wishes she could convinced her husband to leave a note saying where he is going and when he left.

“I had lunch with him in town that day and he told me he was going out on the range, but I didn’t know exactly when he left. He probably got home around 1:30 and changed some water, and planned to put 2 shoes on my horse. So I didn’t know what time he went to ride, but he did say where he was going. We’d all tried to talk him out of riding this colt since he’d only had a few rides in the corral. But he’s been so gentle and so good, Don was going to ride him that day,” says Kathy.

“I had to estimate when he might have left. I didn’t think he’d ride more than 2 or 2 ½ hours on a colt. By 7 I was nervous and called a couple people and told them I was nervous.” By 8 pm she was extremely worried, because she knew they needed daylight to find him. At 8:10 she called Michael and Carolyn Thomas (friends who run cattle on the same range allotment) and they asked where she was going to go looking. She told them she was going to drive to where Don parked the trailer, in case he was coming down to it. Michael and Carolyn met her there.

“The unusual thing about this incident was that Don told me where he was going to ride, when we talked on the phone that morning. He usually doesn’t do that,” says Michael. And since Don runs cattle on three different allotments, knowing which area he was riding was a huge help. “It’s big country, but I had a vague idea about the general area where we might find him. When Kathy called, she only said a few words and I was going out the door because I knew something was very wrong.”

“We got to the trailer and he wasn’t there and at that point I thought, Oh shit. This isn’t good!” says Kathy. Michael said there wasn’t enough time to go get horses. He started up the mountain in his vehicle and Carolyn and Kathy drove back to get a 4-wheeler. Michael figured that if it did get dark before they found Don, they’d have to come back and get horses to continue the search, riding and hollering and trying to find the horse.

They only had a couple hours of daylight left. Weather was cold and windy, and an injured person spending a night out there wouldn’t fare well. Another worry was wolves. “We’d had a calf killed in that area--only a half mile below where we found him--10 days previous. With his dogs there by him, the wolves would easily be attracted to him,” says Michael.
As Kathy and Carolyn went back to get a 4-wheeler they saw another neighbor, Bill Andrews, irrigating, and flagged him down. He was on a 4-wheeler and offered to help search. Kathy told him to follow the water troughs, in case Don had been checking the troughs.

“Michael’s vehicle soon overheated and he couldn’t go any farther. We met him up there and he took our 4-wheeler. Bill went on up to the top trough,” says Kathy. Bill and Michael drove 4-wheelers along parallel ridges across the canyon from one another, and Bill saw Don’s horse down in the draw.

“I saw Bill stop and get off his 4-wheeler and start walking down into that draw. The draw was deep enough that I couldn’t see into the bottom of it so I drove down toward him, and when I got down on a little bench across from him I could see the horse down there,” says Michael.
In the process of hollering back and forth to Bill, Michael turned off his 4-wheeler because he couldn’t hear Bill very well. The wind was just blowing just the right direction that Michael was then able to hear a faint holler, farther up the canyon. Don had seen Michael on the 4-wheeler on the skyline diving off into the draw and Don started yelling.

The wind direction was a miracle. “If it had been blowing the other way I never would have heard him. Bill couldn’t hear Don at all, being around a dogleg ridge in the canyon. I was in the perfect spot to hear him. He couldn’t see Bill and didn’t even know he was there,” says Michael. It was extreme luck to be in the right place at the right time.

Actually it was one of the dogs that saved Don. When they came back to him after the horse ran off, one of them snuggled up against him, helping keep him warm. “Between the shock, the pain and the cold, I was shivering and shaking so bad that the bitch dog came over and laid against me to try to warm me. For some reason she knew I needed body heat. The only problem with that, every time I’d start groaning because of the pain, she’d lick my face. With the wind blowing, that sure made my face cold! So I tried not to groan. I know I would not have made it through the night if they hadn’t found me; it was that cold. I was already in shock, and it had rained on me. If I hadn’t been injured I probably could have survived the night, other than being colder than hell, but being in shock I couldn’t handle it. I was awfully thankful to have people show up.”

Don is hard of hearing and couldn’t hear the 4-wheeler on the ridge. “The dog was laying against me, and she heard Michael. When the dog raised her head up quick to look at something, I raised up a little on my good elbow, and looked, and I saw someone go by on the ridge, about 300 hundred yards away, on a 4-wheeler. There was just barely a little open space there where I could have seen somebody. I started hollering, and in about 5 minutes Mike showed up.”

The dog was very concerned. Michael told Don later that whenever they were doing anything with him, and when they were loading him up, the dog was running around, scared to death. She knew something was wrong. “I was really thankful for that dog. She’s a border collie. The male dogs didn’t come over to lie by me, just her. She was really trying hard to take care of me,” says Don.

“I was sure happy to see Mike! He was sure beautiful! I was thankful Kathy had called people. It was about 9 o’clock when Mike found me. He talked with me for a minute then he took off to tell Bill Andrews where I was, and then ran back up to the top of the hill to try to get cell service—to call Carolyn,” says Don.

Kathy says, “Mike called and told Carolyn to send an ambulance, that he’d found Don. I was with Carolyn when he called, and then his cell phone quit working. All he told us was that he was on a ridge and that he’d found Don, and to send an ambulance. And that’s all we heard. For the next half hour I was in a panic, not knowing how bad he was hurt!” It was an anxious wait.

Meanwhile, Bill Andrews was leading Don’s horse to Don. “The horse was a little skittish, but not too bad to catch, but he was scared of my 4-wheeler so I just walked and led him to where Don was,” says Bill.

“Bill came leading my horse and wondered what to do with it,” recalls Don. “I said pull the saddle and bridle off and turn him loose, and leave the saddle where nobody would run over it when they drove down to get me. My son-in-law later made sure the saddle was brought out,” says Don.

“I told Bill we’ve got enough problems; we can worry about the horse later. So Bill unsaddled the horse and turned it loose. If we’d left him tied up, it would just be something else I’d have to worry about. If he’s loose he could fend for himself. Everybody was more worried about the horse than I was,” says Don.

Michael went back the next day to try to find the horse again. “I hunted every hole and hollow and never did find it,” says Michael. It was several days later before the horse showed up. Another neighbor went out looking and located it with a spotting scope, called Michael, and together the two of them recaptured the horse.

After realizing how difficult it was to relocate the horse, Michael says it was truly a miracle they found Don that night so quickly. “If things hadn’t worked just right we wouldn’t have found him. He may not have had much more time,” says Michael. “I went back up the ridge where there was cell service, to call Carolyn to tell her to get help, and by the time I got back down to Don again it was getting dark.” Don had spent 6 hours on the ground and was cold from the wind and rain, and going into shock from his injuries. “He had a coat on but his legs were very cold. He’d been in the shade of that ridge for at least 4 hours by the time we got there.”

Kathy says it was bitterly cold that evening and she’d built a fire at the house. “I put on a heavy coat when I left to go look for him, and thought to myself that Don was the one who needed a coat! I hoped he had one on. A person usually starts with their coat tied to the saddle! I thought, Oh God, let him please have his coat on! He told me later that he thought about tying his coat on his saddle but thought he didn’t need any extra stuff flopping around, riding a colt, so he wore it,” she says.

“Everything was perfect the way things lined up for us to find him,” recalls Michael. “Where I stopped the 4-wheeler, trying to holler at Bill, was just exactly the right place to hear Don holler. If I’d gone up the way Bill did, riding the high line, I wouldn’t have heard him. I would probably have gone right to the horse, the same way Bill did, and Bill couldn’t hear a thing where he was; he could barely hear me hollering. I just happened to be in the right place where the wind current brought Don’s voice. From where I was sitting the wind was blowing right down that canyon. Bill was around the lee of a hill and couldn’t hear past it,” explains Michael.

“We might have intensely scoured that area after finding the horse, but it might have gotten dark. And, we might not have looked that closely in the immediate area because all of us have had the experience of being bucked off and know that a horse has a tendency to run quite a ways after losing the rider. We may have made circles out beyond Don and missed him, thinking the horse might have run at least a mile. It was unusual that it didn’t. It traveled only about a half mile, maybe because it was a young horse and didn’t know its way around out there. It didn’t know where it was or where to go. Many horses will run until they are chased down and grabbed.” This horse went less than half a mile and stopped, and stood there for almost 6 hours.

“I can’t chalk it up to coincidence; I think it was a miracle. I got the proof of how tough it was to find anything out there, the next day, when we looked for hours and didn’t find anything—no horse, no tracks. A palomino horse would be easy to see. We looked in every draw, going up the ridges to vantage points where we could look down the length of every draw,” he says.
“A palomino horse would stand out, whereas a person lying on the ground in the sagebrush is a lot harder to see. In fact, when I drove in the direction of his hollering I didn’t see Don until I was almost on top of him—I was within 10 feet from running over him. His dogs came to me when they saw me coming, and I just darn near ran him over before I saw him. He was lying in a low area in the sagebrush. Trying to find someone lying flat on the ground in this rough country is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” says Michael.

Don hadn’t been able to move much. He rolled over on his side and lay that way awhile, then rolled back onto his back. But he could only use one arm and couldn’t move his legs because it hurt so badly, with his injured pelvis. “When it first happened I didn’t realize I’d hurt my pelvis. I did that while I was still on the horse, while it was bucking. I lay there at first just catching my breath, and picked up that broken arm with my other hand and stuck it in my coat and zipped it up to hold it, and was trying to figure the best way to walk out. I got up and took 3 steps and got so dizzy I fell back down. I tried several more times to get up, but it wouldn’t work. If it had just been my pelvis I probably could have drug myself a ways with my elbows, but with my one arm broke and my feet wouldn’t work, it was no use,” says Don.
He was terribly cold, and when Michael found him he threw his own coat over Don’s legs. After Bill unsaddled the horse, Michael put the saddle blanket next to Don’s head to shield him from the wind.

When Michael got there, Don said there was no more pain for awhile. It was such a relief to see someone that he forgot about the pain. The adrenalin rush blocked out all the pain for about 30 minutes while Don was so happy and relieved, and he said he was ok. Then the pain set in again.

The search and rescue people came soon after the accident was called in, and got there at dark. They brought a 4-wheeler that pulled a cart with springs, with a gurney on it. They put him on a backboard then onto that cart (with people on each side holding him) to carry Don 300 yards up out of the draw. They took him up to a jeep track where they met the ambulance—where they could work on him in the ambulance and warm him up. It was a 4-wheel drive ambulance and the driver was able to bring it along a jeep track all the way up the ridge above the draw where Don was found.

The ambulance crew decided Don should be transported by life flight to the hospital in Missoula, Montana, and called for a helicopter. “They worked on me in the ambulance for awhile before the helicopter showed up. The EMT’s got me strapped down and immobilized. I told them everything I thought was wrong; I knew I’d split my pelvis, and that my arm was broken,” says Don.

Meanwhile Bill Andrews had driven back down the mountain to get Kathy. She had stayed on the back road to meet the ambulance and direct it to the right place. After he brought Kathy up to where Don was, Bill went down one more time to bring the sheriff’s deputy and helped direct the ambulance up the jeep track. Kathy had gathered up everything she could that was warm. Several neighbors had come to the horse trailer and one of them handed her a big quilt. She took that up and laid it on Don.

“We had a little trouble with the dispatcher,” says Kathy. “She didn’t understand English very well and we couldn’t understand her. She didn’t call for a life flight to begin with, like they told her to, and the EMT’s had to oder it again. By the time the helicopter actually got there, it was about midnight.”

The helicopter pilot hadn’t received very good directions. “When they got into radio contact with the search and rescue EMT’s they said they couldn’t find us. The EMT’s then directed them southeast of Salmon. The EMTs had located a flat spot on the ridge and set out glowing lights to mark the landing spot. As the helicopter got closer to us, they could see our lights. The pilot brought the helicopter right in above us, then hovered and bounced it a few times on the tall sagebrush to mash it down so he could land,” explained Kathy.

“The flight crew got out and went into the ambulance to give Don painkiller and other medications then loaded him into the helicopter and away they went. There wasn’t room for anyone else, so my daughter and son-in-law drove me to Missoula, and we got there about 3:30 a.m.” she says.

It was a windy night and the flight was a bit choppy, but much easier on Don than riding out of the hills in an ambulance would have been. He was very grateful for the helicopter. “It’s not everybody that goes up the mountain on a $500 horse and comes off on a $500,000 helicopter!”

When he got to the hospital in Missoula the doctors discovered he’d broken his arm in 10 places. Surgery involved putting in plates and pinning it together. “I landed on my elbow,” say Don. “It broke the bone off where it goes into the ball joint.” The blood supply to the arm was severely impaired.

“I split my pelvis while I was still on the horse, trying to ride out the bucking. The doctor said it will heal on its own. If a split is over 2.5 centimeters they have to operate, but mine was 2.3. The doctor told me I should try to walk a little every day. As long as it can bear weight and move, walking helps stimulate things to heal. Regarding how much to walk, he said it would pretty much limit me on its own. My walking is improving every day. But the shoulder is a different deal and the doctor said I have to be really cautious with it. If I fall on it or screw it up, it will disrupt the blood supply and I could lose the use of the arm. They might not be able to go back in and fix it. The doctor made the comment that he didn’t like having ranchers for patients because they always want to go back to work too soon.”

Kathy says, “We’ve had such a great outpouring of help from caring people. That night it was incredible; so many people showed up down by the trailer to see if they could help.” And by the next day, when word about the accident got around, neighbors pitched in to help with Don’s irrigating and offered to help with the haying.

Kathy’s co-workers at the Salmon Post Office covered for her during the next 2 weeks so she could stay home and take care of Don. Michael and Carolyn and their daughter helped Kathy move cows on one range allotment and Kathy’s son-in-law packed salt. Don hired Michael’s teenage son to change water through the rest of the summer, and other neighbors are helping with haying and whatever else needs to be done. Kathy says, “This is what makes our community such a great place to live. When something like this happens, friends and neighbors are always there to help.”