August 17 was the first time that Dr. Raymond G. Bayles, an active
Bozeman MD, had got to bed at a decent hour in weeks. The tremors he
felt in Bozeman were strong enough to damage buildings on Montana State
College campus in Bozeman. Recently Bayles had bought the 50-room
Stagecoach Inn at West Yellowstone, and he was concerned about the Inn
and its employees. The phone service to "West" was out. As the night
dragged on, the radio brought him the news that "West Yellowstone was
close to the center of the quake, and that the road to 'West' was
impassable."
[Illustration: Road dropoff on Route 287 along north shore of Hebgen
Lake between Hebgen Dam and the Duck Creek Y. (Wide World)]
He chartered a plane at daybreak. On the way to "West," he had the pilot
fly down over the Madison Canyon. The dust had pretty much settled so
they could see the massive slide in detail. Just above it a group of
people (the Osts, Fredericks, Smiths, etc.) were waving for help. The
lake was beginning to form in the canyon behind the slide. More people
were standing near their cars and trailers halfway between the slide and
the dam. Just below the dam was another caravan which included many
station wagons. On the dam spillway someone had spelled OK-SOS with
pancake flour in big white letters, and marked a big cross on the
highway, in a spot suitable for a helicopter landing. Dr. Bayles
realized that there were injured among those trapped in the canyon.
As they flew low over the lake, they saw where buildings and big
sections of highway had dropped into the lake. On the usually clear
surface of the lake, somehow as a result of the quake, thousands of logs
appeared, probably submerged logs shaken off the bottom. There were
virtually no boats visible.
At the Stagecoach Inn he found the staff huddled around a bonfire under
the trees across the street, where they'd been since the heavy tremors
began cracking plaster in the building. The exception was Jane Winton, a
nurse, who managed the hotel, and had bravely stayed on duty at the
desk.
[Illustration: Stranded docks raised by the quake action which
raised the south shore of Hebgen Lake eight feet.
(U. S. Geological Survey)]
They gathered splints, medicines--whatever emergency material they could
find--and went to the airport. The pilot flew to a field big enough to
land on at the Watkins Creek Ranch, on the south side of the lake about
two miles from the dam.
[Illustration: "OK SOS" signal to airplane.]
In walking toward the dam, they found debris where the tidal wave had
thrown it half a mile up from the shore. The entire south shore of the
lake had risen about eight feet. After a mile's walking they came to a
spot where people were dragging their boats higher out of the water.
They believed the dam was going out, and at first didn't want to lend
Dr. Bayles a boat, but he finally persuaded them. Dodging the many logs
in the lake made the trip difficult. As they approached the dam, Jane
Winton was frightened at the big crack in the dam's concrete core.
"Just you keep watching that crack," Dr. Bayles told her. "If it gets
bigger, you'll know what's going to happen. If not, you'll be telling
your grandchildren about all this."
"To reach the bank, we had to land through a lot of debris that had
gathered at the dam. We went over the top of the concrete at 9:00," Dr.
Bayles said.
"We were met by a girl who seemed to have more authority, Mildred (Mrs.
Ramon) Greene of Billings, Montana, a former nurse who was one of the
real heroes of the disaster. She told us that no one had been there, and
that they'd had no word from outside since the quake, more than nine
hours earlier.
"Mrs. Greene had the injured--there were sixteen serious cases--in the
back of station wagons--two to a wagon, except for one elderly couple
who were in their fishing trailer. Ray Painter, 46, a service station
operator from Ogden, Utah, and his wife, Myrtle, 42, they were perhaps
the most seriously injured. She had flesh torn off her arms, a crushed
chest, a punctured lung, and hemorrhages from an arm artery. Her husband
had deep lacerations over 90 per cent of his legs. Like the other
injured, they were suffering terribly, yet not one of them was
complaining.
[Illustration: Quake victim, Mrs. Margaret Holmes of Billings,
Montana is given plasma as she is taken off the first Air Force
rescue helicopter at West Yellowstone. She died Tuesday night in
Deaconess Hospital, Bozeman. (Wide World)]
[Illustration: Loading victims off Air Force helicopter at West
Yellowstone. (United Press International)]
[Illustration: Settling quake victim in West Yellowstone Airport
shed before flight to Bozeman. (Salt Lake Tribune)]
[Illustration: Nurses care for Mrs. Warren Steele, 37, of Billings
and other quake injured campers in the interior of Johnson Flying
Service DC-3 on flight from West Yellowstone to Bozeman.
(Wide World)]
"As Mrs. Greene took us around, and gave the case histories, we saw what
a resourceful job she and another nurse, Mrs. Fred Donegan of Vandalia,
Ohio, had done in the absence of drugs, medications, and even proper
bandages. We helped with the dressings we'd brought, and the medicines
for pain and shock.
"We were there an hour to an hour and a half. These injured needed
hospital care, and there were no plans, as yet, to get them out. They
couldn't travel by boat. So we got in our boat and went back to West
Yellowstone to arrange for the injured to get from there to Bozeman and
to the hospital when the helicopters did arrive."
[Illustration: Slide victim Ray Painter, 46, of Odgen, Utah is
carried by volunteers from helicopter to evacuation plane at West
Yellowstone airstrip. (Wide World)]
[Illustration: Reporters, photographers, and doctors all giving
attention to quake victims, resting on bales of hay at West
Yellowstone Airport hangar shed. (Salt Lake Tribune)]
Shortly after noon, the first helicopter, a two-rotor silver Air Force
H-21 from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, took its first load of four injured
from the dam.
At West Yellowstone Airport, as arranged by Dr. Bayles, these
injured--in sleeping bags--were immediately loaded onto the floor of a
converted B18, which had brought cargo to "West," and flown to Bozeman.
There Dr. Bayles had organized a fleet of station wagons to rush them to
the hospital for the care that was to save most of their lives.
[Illustration: Associated Press reporter Robert Moore interviews
victim Warren Steele of Billings at West Yellowstone Airport.
(Wide World)]
[Illustration: Dr. Bayles, first M.D. to reach trapped quake
victims, watches as rescued are loaded off Johnson Flying Service
DC-3 at Bozeman Airport.]
[Illustration: Station wagons were pressed into service as
ambulances, to take victims from Bozeman Airport to the hospital.
(Oliver Campbell, Manhattan, Mont.)]