Getting an injured person out of the woods is never an easy task. This is especially true of the Slickrock area of Graham County.
Around 7:23 p.m. July 20, Graham County 911 received a call about a hiker with a fractured ankle, who had been injured six hours earlier. The hiker – later identified as 44-year-old Orlando resident Michael Phillips – was unable to walk and lay 1 ½ miles downstream from Wildcat Falls. Fellow hikers had found Phillips and had to walk out to notify authorities, as there is no cell phone service in the area and even two-way radio usage is limited.
Several units responded, including the Graham County Rescue Squad and Graham County EMS. Graham County Search and Rescue Coordinator Tory Lynnes arrived at Big Fat Gap just before 8 p.m. and reached Phillips shortly after 10 p.m. Lynnes noted that Phillips was in steep, rugged terrain and that it was going to take a lot more personnel to get him out of there.
Larry Crisp, Chad Phillips and Hamilton Boxberger were among those that reached Lynnes with a basket stretcher around 12:30 a.m. July 21. Another group – including Jade Teasdale with the N.C. Forest Service and Jim Teasdale – arrived some time later. The rescue quickly turned into a massive operation, as Graham County Rescue Squad Commander Jeff Millsaps and others were stationed in Big Fat Gap all night, in order to have communications with Lynnes and all the others down in Slickrock.
A lightning storm had started earlier that night and lasted well into the next morning. Heavy rain began falling until around 7:30 a.m. Given the problems the rescue crew was already facing before the storm hit, a request for more personnel was issued. More rescue squad members responded, along with both local and regional U.S. and N.C. Forest Service personnel, as well as Tevin Smoker and seven other members of the Cherokee Indian Police Department.
While all this was in progress, Graham County EMS Director Brian Stevens began to check about the possibility of getting a Blackhawk rescue helicopter from N.C. HART (Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team), with capabilities of airlifting individuals from the woods. The weather improved and the helicopter – which came from Asheville – followed the coordinates that Lynnes had given and came straight to their location, arriving at 9:45 a.m. Within a matter of minutes, two members of the N.C. HART crew were on the ground, while the helicopter hovered nearby. The duo quickly had Phillips secured in the basket stretcher, loaded on the helicopter and flown to the EMS base in Robbinsville.
It was around 1:30 p.m. before the last of the rescuers were back to the parking area and on their way home, exhausted.