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In a sad hour, the Adair County Way at its finest The search for a drowning victim, a hero on a grand scale himself, brought together the best technology, the best coordination of any search effort in recent times. In the end, the openness to receive help from any quarter let the Green River Cowboys use special skills to bring closure to a search when Jeff Hatcher found his friend 8.5 miles downstream in still swift Harrods Fork Creek. Click on headline for full story, plus updates and photo(s) as added By Ed Waggener Wednesday, December 9, 2009, is a day few Adair Countians will ever forget. It began with a frantic call Tuesday night, just after 7pm, from a wife stranded in a pickup in flood-swollen Casey Creek, and a rescue some two hours later by members of the Breeding Area Volunteer Fire Department, the first response unit on the scene, and the subsequent search for her husband, who had been called to rescue her. The search ended some 15 hours later, after the assembly of search parties whose numbers are estimated at 75-80 or more by Adair County Emergency Management Coordinator Greg Thomas. It concluded after a 30-minute search by close friends of the drowning victim, cowboys like Bill Grover, the hero who drowned trying to save his wife. Jeff Hatcher, the cowboy who located the victim, had responded to a call from another of the cowboys, Barry Jones, and reported to the command post of the search effort, took an assignment, and found the remains of his friend after 30 minutes searching in the still raging Harrods Fork Creek. Hero would have been hard to predict The hero of the search would have been hard to predict, at the outset of the search, but that's the way the search system now works, Greg Thomas said. "There's always an element of what seems like chaos at the outset of these searches, but we follow the NIMS system," and, he said, "things quickly fall into place. "NIMS is the National Incident Management System, which is now standard operating procedure for disaster management." NIMS uses a unified command system to bring order to the search effort. BAVFD earliest on the scene The search started with the Breeding Area Volunteer Fire Department, itself one of the finest, best equipped response organizations in the nation. They were joined by units the Taylor County Swift Water Rescue Team, by a rescue team from Green County, by Russell County Rescue, a rescue team from Metcalfe County, by agents from Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, by the Adair County Search and Rescue Team (SAR), by the Emergency Disaster Management Team, by individuals on foot and with four-wheelers, and by Grover's buddies, the Green River Cowboys, who, Greg Thomas says, had the exact equipment and skills needed. Coordinated teamwork was involved. There were more involved. All played a key role. "This is a team effort," Thomas said. "You can't discount anyone. Justin Bailey showed up with the mapping information we needed, proving once again the value of the work he and 911 Coordinator Mary Allender have been doing over years, methodically, in mapping Adair County." Full backing of the Adair County Government Back in town, at homebase, he said, "Anything we wanted, we got." He stayed in touch with CJE Ann Melton. "She backed us up. She said, "Whatever you need, we want you to have. When I asked about feeding the volunteers, she said, 'Do it. Don't even worry about getting a purchase order. We'll take care of that later.' That's what it takes in an emergency," He said. "Someone who is decisive and temporarily puts people above budget concerns when that is what's needed." Barry Jones got calls The Green River Cowboys got into the rescue after Barry Jones received calls from Jody Grover, Bill Grover's wife. One call wasn't complete. Jones doesn't know exactly when she sent it. The second was after the rescue. "She was in the hospital and she was concerned about Bill," Jones said. "She asked if we would help. The Grovers had been a part of the Green River Cowboys, a loosely unorganized but highly cohesive group which had endeared itself to Adair Countians with some Hollywood quality re-enactments, most notably, here, the annual "Folklore of the Old West Festival," the re-enactment of the cruelly unforgettable robbery of the Bank of Columbia. Became more Adair County than natives Bill Grover, an avid horseman and one of those Adair Countians who came "from off" and became more Adair County than the natives, was an experienced re-enactor. You can see Bill Grover in at least one of the Duo-County Videos of the Robbery Ramie Hutchison filmed, Barry Jones said, adding, "He played one of the bystanders on the street," Barry Jones said, "like my wonderful friend Edgar Holmes does, adding authenticity to the scene. He loved Columbia and he loved the Cowboys. And we love him." When call came, Cowboys dropped everything to join search "So when Jody called, I called the other Cowboys and they all dropped what they were doing and said they would go." There were the Hatcher brothers, Randy and Jeff. Darrell Pelston came. And Gary Bryant. Stephen Noel came from Campbellsville. As did Gary Phillips. Chief Harris called EMD Jeff Hatcher loaded his horse and drove to City Hall. "I asked Chief Harris if we could help," he said, "And he called Greg Thomas and who told me where to go to get instructions." When he arrived at the Command Post, the bus the Breeding Fire Department uses on disaster locations, he was assigned a sector. He took a team of four riders, including his brother, Randy, and Darrell Pelston and Gary Bryant, down Chance Road, and went down on Harrods Fork by way of Holly Lane. Water still dangerously high Water in Harrods Fork, which Casey Creek flows into, was still dangerously high. When they rode in the creek, water lapped their mounts bellies. "We rode on the bank downstream," Hatcher said. Searching for drowning victims is not easy. Hatcher said. "You need to know the signs." It's still too close to the tragedy to go into graphic detail, but Hatcher knew the signs. He's been in search parties before. "We weren't on the trail long until we found our friend. They asked me if I could identify Bill," Hatcher said, "And I said, 'Yes. That's him.'" Cellphones could not reach out for creek valley It was 12:43 when the body was found. They tried to called the Command Post to alert them that the search was over, but from down on the Harrods Fork, just a short distance from where it empties into Crocus, the phones would connect. "Darrell (Darrell Pelston) rode back on top of the hill, and called them," Hatcher said. Skilled horseman just the ticket, Greg Thomas said Greg Thomas said that what response units do now is to recognize what special skills are needed. "In this instance," he said, "nobody was more needed than the men on horses."We have to make split second decisions to know when what might seem unlikely volunteers are needed. Fourwheelers couldn't go where horseriders can go. Our vehicles were miring up in mud. When people went out on foot, there was a special danger, and we have to make sure tragedy doesn't pile up on tragedy. But these guys, they're special. They've spent a life time learning horses. Riding the country side in all kinds of weather. Heroism reminiscent of Old West "It was almost Old West heroism. Time was when rescue teams tried to manage search situation for glory and might have turned away offers from groups like the Cowboys. They talked in 'ten' language - 10-4, 10-7, - but we don't do that any more. We talk in real language now, and we aren't looking for 'hotdogs' wanting front page headlines. Our aim is simply to do a job."What the Cowboys did and what all the first response units did was special, Thomas said. The '"ten" language went, Thomas said, because response units need to be able to come onto a scene, and immediately join with others and be able to communicate in the same language. Plain everyday language everybody understands. Cowboys no strangers to danger For the Green River Cowboys, facing danger is part of their lives, whether it is danger in a search, or danger in performances. Their "charter" called for fun. For entertainment. For learning everything they need to know about a horse, and how put together skits, dramas, and plays. There's a director Clint Eastwood, natural style about what they do. Not overly produced. Not too tightly directed. There's individuality and special skills. When the public sees a performance, they see the fun, and they see the entertainment. What many do not realize is the danger the actors risk, and the extraordinary practice and patience they have to make the re-enactments safe for themselves and for the crowds. "A horse responds to what it knows," Barry Jones says. "When we have performances, and there's gunshots, the horse needs to have learned about the sound of gunfire." Before the horse goes to a shoe, we work with them to the point that no matter where the gunshot comes from, the horse can hear it and not bolt." That's part of the work the public never sees when they see a Green River Cowboy ride and shoot from a horse. They've seen it on Tv, and they think there's nothing to it. But in real life, there is. And there's extraordinary work behind the search skills. Jeff Hatcher knows about high water. He lives with it every heavy rain at this land on Russell Creek at Milltown. The banks on his farm are next to the pillars in the creek which once supported the mill which gave the community its name. He's used to high water. He lives with it frequently. And he knows to respect it. And he's dedicated to learning more about working with water rescue.. Interest intensified when Green Countians saved his herd He became more interested in the work a few years ago when 80 of his beef cattle were almost lost. It was before Adair County had the water rescue team needed in the circumstance. "I got help from the Green County water rescue team," Hatcher said. "They saved 80 head of my cattle." Since then, he said, he's learned as much as he could about what needs to be done, when inevitable flooding occurs. Flooding is a common occurrence in Milltown, as it was yesterday morning, when floodwater was at the edge of Milltown Road. Couldn't be prouder Greg Thomas said he couldn't be prouder of Jeff Hatcher and the Green River Cowboys. "They were magnificent," he said. "They were the heroes of the day. But so were everybody else. I can't say enough about the professionalism of organized units and all the volunteers. They were all heroes, in that respect. "I was so proud of how the whole area responded," he said. Nobody tripped over county lines. Everyone worked cohesively. But singularly, there was satisfaction with the way - The Adair County Way - things were done. As Shamarie Claiborne said, "We find problems and we fix them." It's not the glory. It's the common good. It's tragedy and it is triumph. It's a coming together in ways no grinch could put asunder. This story was posted on 2009-12-10 07:48:55
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