Just days after a contracted helicopter was supposed to arrive to be on standby for Tip Top Search and Rescue (TTSAR), a man hiking with his sister and her family went missing. His disappearance from what was supposed to be a day hike from Boulder Lake towards Burnt Lake was reported Saturday

According to Tony Chambers of TTSAR, Bodie Moody of Rock Springs left the rest of his party near the top of the ridge and headed back to the truck. Moody’s sister Mya Boren and her boyfriend followed him 10 minutes later but never found him, and when they reached the parking lot, he wasn’t there.

His body was later found about 3,000 feet north of Boulder Lake by helicopter crew around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. At the same time, Chambers and other TTSAR representatives were presenting their case for the standby helicopter to the Sublette County Board of Commissioners at their regular meeting.

A statement from the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) said Boren reported her brother missing at 5:24 p.m. July 17, almost 72 hours before he was located.

Chambers said TTSAR had immediately assembled a search party of hikers, horseback riders, all-terrain vehicles, dogs and a helicopter. Ten volunteers went out to look for Moody Saturday night; there were 19 Sunday, and they were back down to 12 Monday afternoon, but more arrived later that day.

The SCSO report of the incident said Moody suffered from schizophrenia and was without his medicine. Chambers said Moody’s medical issues increased his risk and caused additional complications for the search and rescue crew.

“When we got this call, had it been someone in good health with good preparedness and backcountry experience, we might have waited until the morning,” he said. “This one ended up with a pretty high urgency level though.”

Boren told Deputy Hueckstaedt, the responding officer Saturday, her brother was carrying only water, was unfamiliar with the Boulder and Burnt Lakes area and was inexperienced at hiking and outdoor survival.

Chambers said the relatively warm nights were to Moody’s advantage, reducing the risk from exposure and elements.

TTSAR was using a local helicopter from Wyoming Helicopters to fly low over the search area, aiding in the search for Moody, but the ship was too small to evacuate him if he had been found.

“We’re using this helicopter primarily for air searching,” Chambers said. “It’s a huge benefit in the fact you can cover an enormous amount of ground in a much shorter amount of time.”

The search helicopter was a two-seater with clear windows, good for flying low and scanning the ground, Chambers said. It cannot, however, transport search personnel to the primary search area, an attribute Chambers would like to have to cut down the hiking and riding the searchers have to do.

The Classic Helicopter Service (CHS) ship that, until last week, had been scheduled to be on standby in the county could not only have aided in the air search, but it could also have transported search and rescue volunteers to the ridge between the lakes.

“If we had the helicopter here now, we could use it to insert search personnel so they don’t expend their energy hiking to the primary search area,” Chamber said.

Sunday evening, TTSAR called in a Wyoming Air National Guard helicopter to aid in the search. There is an infrared scope mounted on the front of the ship called FLIR (forward-looking infrared), which Chambers said senses body heat.

“If the subject can’t or won’t respond for some reason, the infrared acts as a heat-detector, and we should be able to see him that way,” he said.

The capabilities of the CHS ship fall somewhere between the small air-search helicopter and the National Guard ship, but Chambers said it would have been primarily used for rescue missions rather than search missions.

“The need for the helicopter has to do with the rescue side of the mission and the calls we get from deep in the Wind Rivers and high in the Wind Rivers,” Chambers said, adding the small ships aren’t sufficient at high altitudes.

He acknowledged the ship might not be useful to the other county agencies, but noted the ship would be contracted to search and rescue, and they would be the primary users. He said TTSAR was trying to ensure availability of a ship when it needed one.

“It’s about availability,” he said. “The [Bridger Teton] ships in Jackson are good, but they are more expensive, and the state forestry and BLM ships are not capable of going to the altitudes we need to go to.”

Chambers passionately made his pitch to the commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting, and Mario Nickl, a pilot with CHS, was on hand to explain the capabilities of the ship in question. He repeatedly referred to it as a “Swiss Army knife,” with a sharp blade as its primary function but with accessories and auxiliary functions.

Search and Rescue also received vocal support from outside agencies. Fremont County Sheriff’s Office Captain David Good called into the meeting to express his support for the ship. Fremont County Commissioners refused to contribute to the standby costs of the helicopter, which frustrated Good because, he said, it can be really difficult to get a helicopter when the department needs one.

“When you really need a ship, you sometimes can’t get them when seconds mean the difference between life and death,” he said. “The availability is crucial.”

Chambers addressed every stated concern of the commissioners from funding to usage, but in the end, Commissioners Bill Cramer and Joel Bousman remained unconvinced.

“The discussion we’re having now is significantly different from the discussion here at the last meeting,” Bousman said. “The last time we talked, I understood the purpose was to be able to rescue people out of the wilderness.”

Now, he continued, the purpose was to get rescue personnel to the site, stabilize and move the victim to a landing zone accessible by an air ambulance. But Bousman’s biggest concern wasn’t the cost or even the need for the ship but the confusion and lack of communication surrounding the issue.

“I’m disappointed you’ve been planning this for five years and we just learned about it at the last meeting,” he said. “We need to learn how to go back and talk to each other. The communication problem bothers me more than the money.”

Cramer took what he called a cold and hard-nosed view of the situation.

“Is this a necessary expense for the taxpayers of this county?” he asked. “Does it fill a gap I don’t see being filled? I’m willing to be convinced, but I’m not, so far.”

Commissioner John Linn, a member of TTSAR who had been actively participating in the search for Moody in the previous days, said the contract should be seen as a trial period to experience and assess the value of having the helicopter in the county for use during missions, both rescues and searches like the one above Boulder Lake.

Cramer said he continued to find TTSAR’s argument unconvincing, saying he hadn’t heard enough to make him think the helicopter was required.

Bousman suggested TTSAR address the communication issues between agencies, rethink the plan and return to the commissioners.

“I can’t support it today, but if the things that need to occur do occur, then … I’ll see the people in the business see this as a need and I’ll be behind it.”

The commissioners never voted on the pending contract, but County Clerk Mary Lankford said the result of the discussion was there would be no helicopter on standby in the county this season. She did note, however, this did not preclude TTSAR from bringing in helicopters from companies like CHS or state or federal agencies to aid in missions like that for Moody.

For the complete article see the 07-23-2010 issue.

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