140 Search & Rescue Members A Mile From Snowmobile Accident

When you call for a search and rescue team in the wilderness, you should probably expect them to take around an hour, maybe more, to find you. When the 61-year-old victim of a snowmobile accident in Wasatch County, Utah, was in need of search and rescue, a team of twenty was able to get there in just eight minutes.

As it turns out, 140 search and rescue team members were training just about a mile away in the Strawberry Valley area of Heber City on February 3rd at the time of the accident. According to KSL TV 5, Wasatch County search and rescue team commander Kam Kohler believes it has to have been a response time record.

“Shocked, shocked. All of a sudden guys come out of the woodwork very very quickly. Where did all these guys come from? It’s a long way from here to there. On a normal call, it would be about 40 minutes.“

The 61-year-old unfortunately suffered injuries that required evacuation and eventual transport to the hospital. 17 counties across the state of Utah were represented at the Utah Sherriff’s Association’s two-day winter training, making up a total of 140 team members, one of which being an emergency room doctor.

“We were training in the same drainage as this snowmobile accident. It was fortuitous for this person to have all those search and rescue guys right there. We had 20 search and rescue team members in about eight minutes.” – Kohler

Obviously nobody wants to get injured in the backcountry. Search and rescue situations are often dangerous for both the injured and the responders. But if there’s one time to get injured in the backcountry, it has to be right when there’s a SAR training event just a mile away. Absolutely impeccable timing.