Santeetlah – Graham County Rescue Squad members Tory Lynnes and Brent Eller faced some extreme weather in the high mountains of Graham County between the late-night hours of Jan. 24-25, to reach a hiker in the Joyce Kilmer Forest.
Graham County 911 received a call from a mother around 6:45 p.m., Jan. 24, expressing concern for her daughter, 23-year-old Knoxville resident Thais Lloyd, who had gone camping alone. The mother was was worried about the weather forecast for heavy rain and possible snow in the higher elevations.
The mother had talked with her daughter, and found out that in addition to not having the proper clothing and gear for the weather, Lloyd had also lost her head lamp. About an hour later, Lloyd called the dispatch center asking to be rescued, as she had no light and her cell phone was almost dead. During this time, weather conditions continued to worsen.
Lynnes, Eller, Joel McCracken and two members of the Snowbird Rescue Squad responded as efforts began to get the woman out of the woods.
As Lynnes and Eller got in higher elevation, they were in more than a foot of snow from a previous storm. At times, a mixture of sleet and snow was falling. The worst obstacle was the high winds that was blowing trees down and sending tree limbs crashing to the ground from time-to-time. The wind was blowing so hard that the rescuers could not hear each other unless they stopped and faced each other.
They located Lloyd on the Naked Ground Trail – elevation 4,920 feet – a little past 12:20 a.m. Jan. 25. The temperature there was 18 degrees, with a wind chill of 0 and over a foot of snow. The weather made the rescue take much longer that it would have under normal conditions, as the crew did not reach the Joyce Kilmer parking lot with Lloyd until after 3:30 a.m. Jan. 25.