SAR Assists in Horse Creek Rescue

Park County Search and Rescue volunteers spent Saturday night at the side of a local man who had been thrown from his horse over five miles from the North Fork Highway and was unable to be moved until Sunday morning.
The call came into the Park County Dispatch Center at about 6 p.m. Saturday evening, with the report that 46-year-old Cody resident Scott Vaughn had been thrown from his horse in the Horse Creek drainage about 5 miles from the trailhead on the North Fork. Vaughn had been riding with a companion when he was thrown, and his injuries resulted in back pain, shortness of breath and nausea.
When Search and Rescue crews arrived, accompanied by a wilderness medical team from Cody Regional Hospital, it was determined that weather and terrain conditions made it impossible for a safe evacuation at that time, so the decision was made to spend the night with Vaughn and make him comfortable until morning.
A Blackhawk helicopter from the Wyoming Army National Guard out of Cheyenne was able to short haul Vaughn out at first light Sunday. He was transported to Cody Regional Health.
Sheriff Scott Steward praised the interagency cooperation of the first responders which lead to another successful rescue, citing their selflessness in not only hiking five miles into the victim in the middle of the night, but then bedding down with him to make him comfortable until help arrived in the morning.