A group of hero mountain bikers spotted and rescued a missing hiker who was wandering the Idaho wilderness nearly naked with bleeding feet, according to authorities and reports.
Heather Wayment was reported missing by her family on Sept. 17, a day after she vanished, with her last known location in the Prairie Creek area of Blaine County, Idaho, according to a statement from the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office.
Just a day later, Wayment was spotted on a remote trail in Camas County by a group of mountain bikers, who were not a part of an intense, multi-agency search effort already underway to find her, cops said.
Brothers Tommy and Vinton Gwinn, along with their friend Shelton Robinson, were on an annual biking and camping trip when they unintentionally discovered Wayment in the mountains over 17 miles from where she was last seen, wandering in her underwear with her feet covered in blood, East Idaho News reported.
“We stopped as she was obviously in bad shape,” Tommy Gwinn told the outlet.
“She didn’t want help at first. She was scared and very guarded. It took about a half hour before she would talk.”
“We got her some filtered water from the creek and gave her a jacket,” Robinson said. “She let her guard down a bit and told us her name and that she was lost.”
The missing hiker had taken her shorts off to bandage her raw, bleeding feet, and had left her phone in her car, the bikers recalled.
While helping Wayment, three other bikers, Andrew Mortensen, Randy Ivy, and an unknown third rider, stopped and recognized her as the missing hiker, the outlet reported.
The bikers supplied Wayment with food and water, while others worked to call for help in the desolate wilderness with no cell service.
Using GPS coordinates, an off-road map app, and satellite texts, Gwinn sent texts to his wife in Pocatello, who called authorities about her husband’s findings, the outlet said.
“At 3:45 p.m. and about 50 messages later we finally got word that a rescue helicopter was on the way,” said Gwinn.
“Technology worked very well in this situation.”
One of the dirt bikers had to lift Wayment onto the back of his bike to take her down to a meadow where a rescue helicopter could land.
After seeing her lifted to rescue, the bikers reflected on the “remarkable” feat that Wayment made it out of the wild despite the treacherous terrain she trekked.
“This is really rugged country. She was not on a bike path and had to go over numerous mountains to get where she was.” Gwinn said. “It was so cold at night. It’s remarkable she’s still alive.”
“We’re super grateful we found her,” added Robinson. “It’s always in the back of your mind that something could happen and you need to be rescued. It was cool to see how an actual rescue works. I was very impressed.”
Wayment was transported to a local hospital by flight crew by 5:45 p.m. with unknown injuries, police said.
The bikers were praised by local authorities for saving the woman.
“We especially want to thank our Blaine County Sheriff’s Office deputies for their incredible efforts over the past two days, and the mountain bikers who were able to contact law enforcement, guide the Life Flight crew to Heather, and remain by Heather’s side offering aid until medical assistance could arrive,” Blaine County Sheriff, Morgan Ballis, wrote in a statement.
Wayment’s current condition is not immediately known.
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