Crews rescue injured hiker stranded on mountainside slope

A grateful Keith Meyers was scheduled for surgery Monday at St. John’s Lutheran Hospital to insert a rod in his right leg to reinforce the fractures sustained in a mountainside fall Saturday.

“Those guys were great,” Meyers, 53, said Sunday from his bed in Room 210. “I consider myself pretty fit, but there was just no way I was getting out of there without their help. They were terrific.”

Meyers and friend Susan James were “horn hunting” on the south side of Highway 2 about seven miles west of Libby Saturday afternoon when his left foot slipped on slush, spinning him sideways and twisting his right leg. The fall fractured both the tibia and fibula in his lower right leg.

“Apparently, I spun as I fell. Doctors tell me it can take the compression, but not the twisting, which is what I did.”

Meyers fell about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, and rescue workers were there in a hurry. Meyers was worried about hypothermia.

“It hurt like heck, so I was trying to lay still, but I wasn’t generating any body heat. I was so glad to see those guys with blankets. They were even throwing their coats on top of me.”

Lincoln County Sheriff Deputy John Graham is the liaison with David Thompson Search & Rescue, and he was among the first to get to Meyers.

“He was in a lot of pain,” Graham said. “We were doing everything to make him comfortable.”

Graham echoed Meyers’ sentiment of the rescuers.

“They’re a great group of volunteers who will do anything. A lot of them even buy their own gear,” Graham said.

Those crews include rescuers from David Thompson Search & Rescue, Libby Volunteer Fire Department, Libby Volunteer Ambulance, and paid officials from the Montana Highway Patrol and the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.

Because of the steep grade on the south side of the highway, crews immobilized Meyers in a litter and used ropes to lower him down in various stages before they could carry him out.

Meyers was in good spirits as rescue workers emerged the woods at 8:06 p.m., more than 2-1/2 hours after his fall.