BUTTE — A Butte father and four children were found safe after their vehicle broke down during a fishing trip north of Butte on June 23.
WATCH: 100 volunteers. One helicopter. A family brought home safe. 🙌
The 15-90 Search and Rescue team, along with multiple agencies and roughly 100 volunteers, located the family after an extensive search of rugged public land north of Butte, where roads are not maintained and getting stuck is common.
Brad Belke, who commands the 15-90 Search and Rescue team, said the search covered a large and shifting area.
"It was huge area and the boundaries of that area kept changing," Belke said.
The family failed to return home from a fishing trip on June 23, prompting the search. After hours of searching locations where the team expected the family might be, Belke said they shifted their strategy.
"We'd looked every place a reasonable person would — maybe it's time to go someplace where nobody would go, and, so, about that time the helicopter showed up, which is a godsend, as always," Belke said.
An airman from Malmstrom Air Force Base's 40th Helicopter Squadron flew over the area and spotted the family hiking along a road north of Maney Lake. Members of the BLM, Federal Marshals, the U.S. Forest Service, and about 30 members of Belke's team reached the family 15 minutes later.
Belke said the father was extremely grateful, and the family was in good shape when rescuers arrived. The transmission gave out in the 2001 Ford Ranger that they were driving. The father explained that he didn't want to put stress on his kids and walk out as three of the children have Type 1 Diabetes.
"We got there, and it took like a minute to know that everybody was healthy and fine, and it took another minute to realize that nobody was really traumatized. I mean, they spent the night out there, and some people would've been traumatized by that," Belke said.
I met up with one of the rescued children outside the Butte hospital one hour after the rescue. Pacee Klimpel, 13, described how the family managed overnight.
"It wasn't that bad, I mean, we had food, water, gas...so we had the heat on for a little bit, and then we all fell asleep for a little bit and then woke up and started chopping some trees down," Klimpel said.
The entire family was released from the hospital after extra care was taken for his cousins, who have Type 1 diabetes.
"I'm glad that everyone was out there looking for us, and we're safe now," Klimpel said.
Belke, who has 46 years of service with search and rescue, said he has never lost a child during a search. He credited the roughly 100 volunteers who turned out for this effort.
"So, these guys were racing around spending their fuel, time off of work...I can't tell you... they just were fabulous," Belke said.
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