U.S. Forest Service Hand Crew 401 hikes through the wilderness during the search for an injured hiker on July 1, 2025, in Grant County. (Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley/Contributed Photo)

Search and rescue, U.S. Forest Service crew aid in rescue

GRANT COUNTY — A 46 year-old Aumsville woman went to a hospital in Washington state after she fell 200 feet down a mountain while hiking in the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness in Grant County. Rescuers reached her during a thunderstorm.

Grant County Emergency Management received a call July 1 at approximately 3 p.m. from Katrina Thomas, 21, reporting her 46-year-old mother, Darci Thomas, had fallen 200 feet down a mountain and struck her head. Thomas didn’t know exactly where she and her mother were, but reported they were on the Skyline Trail near the Mud Lake Junction in the wilderness.

“Because cell service is so limited up there and the inability to get a good cross, we couldn’t get GPS coordinates for where they were,” Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley said.

McKinley said circumstance left emergency responders needing to guess where the pair were based on clues and questioning. The pair said they’d left High Lake earlier that day and were headed back to Strawberry Lake.

McKinley said the pair referenced Skyline and the Mud Lake Trail intersection during questioning about their location. He obtained rough coordinates and a latitude and longitude based on those locations before contacting the U.S. Forest Service and requesting a rappel helicopter.

McKinley said the agency did not have a rappel helicopter available but did have another type that has to land and is unable to have rescuers descend via ropes.

An ambulance crew requested a flight ambulance as well.

McKinley said he had everyone who was going to assist in the search and rescue stage at Road’s End at High Lake because that was the closest location to where rescuers believed the duo to be.

A Forest Service crew happened to be in the vicinity and were sent to the location to assist with the rescue.

“Crew 401 took off in there, cutting out the trail in case we had to pack her out because the helicopter option didn’t work,” McKinley said.

The Forest Service helicopter located Darci Thomas after conversations with McKinley and landed nearby, where emergency medical technicians began treating Thomas’ injuries. Forest Service personnel also obtained better coordinates for the rescue site, allowing a Life Flight helicopter to land shortly after the Forest Service helicopter departed.

Nurses from the Life Flight helicopter hiked to Thomas and began treating her injuries. McKinley said Crew 401 arrived and constructed a better landing zone that was closer to Thomas.

Rescuers loaded Thomas onto the helicopter, which flew her to a hospital in Washington. McKinley said the entire ordeal, from receiving Katrina Thomas’ call to getting her mother loaded onto the helicopter, took roughly five hours.

“The weather was terrible,” McKinley said. “That storm blew in and we could hear trees breaking off and snapping in the forest, they were able to get out of there and fly the patient to Washington.”

Crew 401 hiked out with Katrina Thomas and helped pack out all of her and her mother’s equipment.

McKinley said this rescue was challenging given the technicality involved. The duo’s location was unknown and finding a helicopter landing zone in a remote forest was challenging.

“Pretty fortunate that it turned out the way it did,” he said.

McKinley said he couldn’t say whether Thomas’ injuries were life threatening but circumstances could have called for her to remain in the forest overnight while waiting for military craft to reach her. The sheriff said that would not have been ideal because Thomas was wet and cold in addition to her injuries.

“I don’t know if it would have been fatal, but it wouldn’t have been good,” he said.

McKinley praised the Forest Service crew, calling it the rescue effort’s “game changer.”

“Time wise, we were working on the edge of darkness,” he said. “What they got done prevented it from turning into a much more extensive ordeal, they were absolutely instrumental in getting it done.”