Rescue at Kyle's Landing

[Sparky]

As I was exiting the Buffalo at Kyle's around 4pm this past Saturday there looked to be a major rescue underway. Ambulance and virtually every ranger from the Buffalo was there. Flashing lights and speeding ranger vehicles flying down the mountain. The one's that were already there were rapidly packing gear. My guess is Indian Creek injury and rescue. Anybody know what was actually happening?

The color on the river was spectacular, and very little traffic.

Brent Glover

[wheelerphoto]

Brent,

It was in fact a rescue a good ways up Indian Creek. A guy had fallen/tumbled down a portion of waterfall and landed on a bench at the lip of one of the tall bluffs.

We had to do a technical rescue and lower him down the bluff about 60 or 70 feet in a stokes basket.

Ended up being about 11 hours from the time I was called until it was over. That, of course, was much easier than the one we did a couple of days before at Twin Falls....

Glenn Wheeler

[Sparky]

Thanks Glen. Again, I didn't want to bother the persons involved.

I hiked Indian Creek from top to bottom about ten years ago, now I only hike segments. The area between Eye of the Needle and Cave Falls is horribly eroded from hikers scrambling up and around. This area is suffering severly from human inpact, so I now stay away. I'm guessing since you approached from Kyle's that it was somewhere in this area where the accident occured?

Brent

[dwilson]

NW Arkansas needs a helicopter like what the Coast Guard has.

[Richard]

ITS A BIRD . . .

Its a Helicopter . . .

Why is he turning around . . .

[Richard]

What did I do?

But it was just a little rock with a hole in it

[dwilson]

Not what I had in mind Richard. Was thinking of the ones with winch,cable, and lift baskets. You know drop the line down in the woods and pull up the hurt. Get them out quick.

[wheelerphoto]

Yeah, a helicopter with winching capabilities would be great sometimes, such as in the Ed Cooley incident. It wouldn't have done us any good on the Indian Creek rescue or most of them we do. The woods are just too thick to insert the basket.

There are times though, when it would be great!

I believe the one pictured above is the Baxter County Sheriff's Office helicopter. When I was a deputy, we used it a time or two and it was great. The State Police also have choppers we can use for searches, etc, but no lifting abilities.

Usually it's just good old fashioned man power.... And we can almost always use more folks!

Should you find yourself somewhere a search and/or rescue is taking place and you do want to help, check in at the staging area if there is one. Ask around and find someone who has some knowledge of what is going on and offer to help. We can always use folks for something.

The main thing is to be patient. A lot of folks show up to help and want to rush right in. A true search/rescue is usually managed chaos and there are very specific tasks going on everywhere. You may have to wait in staging for a big, but I'm sure you'll be welcomed in most cases.

There are cases where folks just arriving can't be used, but those are rare. If you have good folks running the show (not always the case), they will love to have the help and will find a good place for you. Even if it seems mundane and unimportant, it probably is not.

A good example at the Kyles Landing/Indian Creek was that we needed someone to put together sandwiches for people to carry in to us. Not too glitzy I know, but let me tell you, that was one of the most important people to us. When the sandwiches, water and hot coffee made it to us and we could eat and drink when we were getting a break from the basket, it made our trip out SOOO much better.

The main thing really is, don't go freelancing as you might really mess up a certain game plan, evidence, scent trail, etc. And, understand that the folks running the show are often under a great deal of stress but will do the best they can to use you...