Being part of this rescue team in Idaho could ‘change your life’

POCATELLO — When Tamra Bassett woke up, she found herself at the bottom of a ravine and couldn’t remember how she got there.

What Bassett remembered was driving her UTV up Gibson Jack around 5 p.m. that day, August 12th. Instead of having a passenger with her, she had placed her water bottle and phone on the seat next to her.

Bassett also remembered her husband leaving for work for the evening before she headed out.

Even if he had been home, with the longer light hours in the summer, it wasn’t unusual for her to go out in the evenings and spend time outdoors.

“No one will know where I am,” Bassett realized.

As Bassett attempted to return to her crashed UTV, she quickly realized she was too injured to hike up the canyon.

“This is not the day I die”

“I fell, hit my head and started bleeding, and I rolled back down the hill,” Bassett said.

She thought that returning to her vehicle would be the easiest way to be found, so she resorted to army crawling up the canyon.

She made it to about 30 to 40 feet. The problem was that she had rolled at least 100 feet down the hill and her UTV was so far off the trail that it wasn’t easy to see.

As Bassett watched the sunset, she prayed that someone would notice she was gone.

Bassett remembers thinking to herself, “You’re tougher than this. You’ll be fine.” You just have to wait.”

And so Bassett waited. As the hours passed, the rain drizzled on her, and there were moments when she felt like she could have “given up,” but she reminded herself, “This is not the day I die.”

Bassett woke up again in the early hours of August 13, still in the canyon, but this time she could hear a “clicking, static” sound. She realized it was a megaphone and that there was a voice.

The Backcountry Rescue Team found her.

To help

This team had responded to its first emergency call on June 24, 50 days before Bassett was rescued. The team consists of 11 volunteers, each with extensive experience in the outdoors and wilderness first aid. It works with the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office and in search and rescue.

The idea of ​​creating a team that could specialize in rescuing people from the backcountry emerged several years ago when the pandemic led to a surge in people exploring the outdoors. Recognizing the need, Pebble Creek Ski Area established a formal ski patrol branch to respond to nearby backcountry accidents.

Some members of that team, as well as other community members, began to recognize the need for a group that could respond to backcountry accidents year-round. Two of them were Luke Nelson, who has been with the Pebble Creek Ski Patrol for 15 years, and Ed Gygli, who has served with the ski patrol for 10 years.

The two set up a meeting with the sheriff’s office and pitched their idea for a team “that can go into the mountains, into technical terrain way out there where maybe an ATV or a motorized vehicle can’t go,” Nelson said.

When Bannock County Sheriff Tony Manu heard about the idea, he also recognized the need and officially began organizing the Backcountry Rescue Team in the fall of 2023.

When the Backcountry Rescue Team is needed in an emergency, it calls all of its members and about half of the team responds. Responding members then work with the sheriff’s office and any available search and rescue team members to coordinate a rescue operation.

Not only do all 11 members of the team have extensive experience navigating the backcountry, they are also equipped for wilderness first aid and some have advanced medical training.

“As far as immediate response and stabilization of someone who is really seriously injured, we are ready and willing to do that,” Nelson said.

As volunteers with their own jobs and personal lives, Nelson said they sometimes have to take time off from work to participate in a rescue. To him, this shows how committed the members of the team are to serving their community.

“Sometimes we take time off from work,” Nelson said. “Team members may use their vacation time to serve the community, which is pretty special to find a group of people who are so committed to service that they are willing to do it.”

Although some calls the Backcountry Rescue Team responded to only took an hour or two to resolve, there are other situations that continued into the next day. Even then, it’s a relatively short time frame to find someone, Nelson said.

Read the full story at EastIdahoNews.com.