Lightning survivors recount strike at Star Meadow

Woman recalls 'bright yellow light over my shoulder'

The Flathead Hotshots logo - a lightning bolt and flames over the state of Montana - has taken on deeper meaning since two members of the elite firefighting crew survived a lightning strike last week.

Heather McEvoy, 25, and Beau Morin, 29, have recovered since the May 29 strike on a ridge in the Star Meadow area southwest of Whitefish. They and fellow crew members say their training played a huge role in a quick and calm response after the incident.

Nine members of the 20-person crew were on the ridge securing firelines and felling hazard trees the day after they carried out a prescribed burn on 64 acres.

Just before 1 p.m., a sprinkling rain quickly turned into a heavy downpour and then hail.

"There was a little rumbling and I saw a downstrike" on a ridge not far to the northeast, said Bert Smith, the ranking supervisor that day. "It all happened really quick."

Martin immediately told crew members to start hiking out, a distance of about a quarter mile to where their Flathead Hotshots rig was parked.

McEvoy and Morin were at the rear of a group of four people, walking near a large larch tree.

"The big larch got hit," Morin recalls. "I remember kind of seizing up and falling over backwards. She fell over backwards."

Morin said there was a thundering concussion, and the lightning charge arched from the larch to a smaller fir tree nearby. He tried to get up quickly to help McEvoy, who was on the ground screaming, but found that "the whole left side of my body was numb."

McEvoy said she remembers "a bright yellow light over my shoulder. I knew it was lightning. I thought I was done. I thought they were going to be doing CPR on me."

She quickly realized that she was fine from the waist up, but from the waist down she was numb. The numbness faded, she said, and was replaced with a sharp, pulsing pain in her lower right leg.

She found that she hadn't suffered any actual burns, but she had swelling and discoloration in her lower leg and foot.

"I was on borderline shock," she said. "I was crying one second and laughing the next."

One crew member in the group, Ichiro "Ichi" Stewart, is a trained emergency medical technician who raced to help McEvoy and then radioed for Smith, who was at another location on the burn, about a half mile away. The call for help was quickly relayed to the Flathead dispatch center in Kalispell, and the ALERT helicopter was called in from Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Hungry Horse District Ranger Jimmy DeHerrera said word of people being hit by lightning spread quickly among Flathead forest staffers, who at first didn't know that Forest Service personnel were involved.

Once they learned that it involved Flathead Hotshots crew members, he said, there was deep concern.

Smith said the crew, which is accustomed to reacting as a team in high-stress situations, responded quickly and with composure. While Stewart carried McEvoy out of the woods on his back, Morin walked, and other crew members gathered up gear. Smith handled communications.

It took about 40 minutes from the time of the lightning strike to the time McEvoy was aboard the helicopter and in the air, Smith said. Morin was transported by ambulance and both were released from the Kalispell hospital that night.

"We're like brothers and sisters. We take care of each other," Smith said.

The Flathead Hotshots crew was formed in 1965, and is one of 93 "Type I" firefighting crews across the nation.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com