When the report of an injured snowmobile rider came in around 5 p.m. last Tuesday, the North Big Horn Search and Rescue squad readied their trucks, sleds, blankets and other equipment for a trip up the Big Horn Mountains. None of them knew it would be a harrowing search that would continue through the night and that severe weather would delay the rescue until daybreak.


A team of 14 Search and Rescue responders assembled and plotted the best route to Honeymoon Cabin, where initial reports said the injured snowmobiler, Bob Szewc, 62, of Sheridan was stranded. Upon reaching Little Mountain to launch the sleds, an updated report came in indicating the injured party was near Dugan’s Bench, Search and Rescue captain Scott Allred said. Dugan’s Bench and Honeymoon Cabin are close to each other, but separated by Devil’s Canyon, he said.


The rescue team backtracked and made their way to the Crystal Creek Rest Stop to park their trucks. Fire Captain Bob Mangus heard news of the search in progress and offered to help, being familiar with the area where the injured snowmobile rider was. He hopped in his truck with sleds already loaded and met the team at the causeway.


Upon reaching the rest stop, sleds were launched. Mangus, Dave Keele and Jim Thomas plowed their way through thick drifts of snow, Thomas pulling a sled of equipment behind him. The ride was rough, Mangus said, causing Thomas to crash into the timber and injure his arm. Thomas didn’t tell Mangus about the injury and continued to ride on.


Mangus, Thomas and Keele made it to the top of Bucking Mule Ridge, where Mangus spotted a sled coming out of Deer Creek, likely one of the riders that was with Szewc.
They took off through Turk’s Alley to try to catch up with the other sled, but got stuck several times and missed the snowmobile, Mangus said. Keele posted up on the other side of Turk's Alley to watch for other snowmobilers while Mangus went back to help with Thomas's sled, which was stuck and having trouble starting.


The snowmobiler eventually made contact with Keele, and instructed him that Szewc was in Hannan’s Coulee. Mangus left Thomas with the broken sled and continued with Keele and the other snowmobiler toward Scewc as the snow began to pick up.


Once they reached the location, blizzard-like conditions prevented the team from finding the injured man on the side of the ridge, Mangus said.


"The heavy snow made it confusing and it's dark so you can't see any landmarks," Mangus said. "When you get out on those big flats, it makes it tough."


Eventually, Keele and Mangus came upon some snowed-in tracks, left several hours ago, and followed them straight through the storm to the wounded rider.
Bundled in blankets, Szewc was clearly in pain, Mangus said, and screaming with every breath. Keele, an EMT, checked him out and found his femur was broken just below the hip.


The rescuers and snowmobilers sat on the south face of Dugan Bench in an open area, huddled around a small fire made of sagebrush scraps, contemplating their next move.  They decided they would have to buckle down and stay on the mountain until the weather permitted a helicopter rescue, Mangus said. There were talks of using a snow cat, he said, but they decided that move would be risky, and too rough of a ride back for the injured man.


So they decided to sit tight through the storm, but Szewc was in desperate need of medication after sitting with a broken femur for more than 10 hours (so far). Mangus decided to go back and pick up Thomas, who was carrying morphine and was the only one licensed to use it. The two rode back double through the driving snow. It was then that Thomas told Mangus about his injured arm.


“That was tough riding on a normal day,” Mangus said, giving Thomas credit, “let alone in a blizzard, in the dark and with one arm.”


Thomas, a registered nurse, administered morphine to Szewc and the group remained around the fire, which was gaining strength after some firewood found nearby was added to the mix. They contacted North Big Horn Hospital EMS coordinator Scott Murphey to see if a helicopter from Billings would be available for a mountain rescue. The helicopter was readied, but the pilots and those stranded on the mountain slope had to wait for the weather to clear before a flight could safely be made.


As the snow cleared up around 6 a.m., it got cold, Mangus said. The chopper arrived around 8 a.m., guided in by radio contact with the crew below. Pilots dropped off a medical crew to work on Szewc at the site and flew Thomas to the Search and Rescue staging area off 14A. The chopper then flew back to pick up the med crew and Szewc and flew back to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Mangus said the chopper probably left around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, and the crash happened 16 1/2 hours earlier, at about 4 p.m. Tuesday.


Allred said the rescue mission was pretty successful for the conditions, once the team knew where they were going. He said it was frustrating to waste several hours in the beginning looking in the wrong area. Much of the confusion was probably because different people have different names for the same places on the mountain, Allred said.


This past weekend, Mangus and his sons, Jeremy and Wes, and friends Barry Wilske and Wade Brost went up to retrieve the sleds from where they were left last week. They spent 30 minutes digging and dragging the buried search and rescue sled as well as Szewc’s sled, which was left in at the scene of the rescue.