All three hikers that fell into Avalanche Creek gorge Sunday are in stable condition, thanks in large part to the quick thinking of nearby hikers.

One of the three victims slipped and fell into the gorge while attempting to take a photo around 7 p.m., July 6, said Glacier National Park officials in a statement. Two other people in the group fell into the gorge attempting to save the first victim.   

Mike Skidmore and his family — which included about 20 adults and children — were hiking the Avalanche Lake Trail at the same time. The family frequents the park while staying at their second home in the Flathead Valley, he said.  

Skidmore had just reached the wooden bridge spanning Avalanche Creek when his brother took off running down the streambank. 

“He yelled at me there’s someone in the river or there’s bodies in the river,” said Skidmore. 

Skidmore rushed after his brother to a downstream section of Avalanche Creek bottled up by logs and other debris. At first, Skidmore said he thought the group would simply be offering a hand to an unlucky swimmer caught in the creek’s swift current. Then, his nephew yelled that he had found a body. 

The first of the two victims, a woman, had caught on one of the logs near the middle of the stream. The water rose to Skidmore’s chest as he and his nephew pulled at the woman’s submerged body.  

“It really took all of our strength to get her out without going out ourselves,” said Skidmore. 

The pair hauled the woman to shore. Skidmore’s brother, a trained radiation oncologist, attempted to find a pulse. Nothing. 

“That was pretty frightening,” recalled Skidmore. “We had no idea at that point how long they had been in [the water].” 

As his brother started CPR, Skidmore and his nephew re-entered the water. They quickly found the second victim, a man, who had also been trapped underwater by debris. Like the first victim, the man was unresponsive.  

Skidmore, unable to find a pulse, drew on the medical training he learned to become a dentist and began CPR. 

Skidmore was later told that both victims were pulled from the water within four minutes, though he admitted that adrenaline likely skewed his perception of time. 

He thought that the woman began breathing on her own after about a minute of CPR. By the time park rangers arrived, some 20 minutes later by Skidmore’s estimation, she was standing and talking. 

“I don’t know how the wife came out as unscathed as she did,” he said. 

The man’s condition was far more dire. A nasty gash on his forehead leaked blood as the Skidmore brothers and another passerby traded off doing chest compressions and rescue breathing. Skidmore believed the trio continued CPR for three to four minutes before the man started breathing on his own. After that, the man answered a question by squeezing the finger of Skidmore’s brother, which Skidmore took as a positive sign. 

The third victim, whom Skidmore believed to be a teenage boy, managed to position himself on a log above the rushing waters in the gorge. Afterward, Skidmore learned that some of his relatives had considered launching a rescue mission to retrieve the boy, but they ultimately deemed it too risky.  

A ranger later rappelled down the slick rock walls and secured the boy before he was hoisted out of the gorge by the park’s technical rescue team.  

All three victims were transported to Logan Health Medical Center in Kalispell. Two patients were transported by ambulance while one was taken in an A.L.E.R.T. helicopter.  

Park officials credited the Skidmore brothers and other quick-thinking bystanders with saving the lives of the two victims that were swept into the gorge. 

“The park would like to thank the park visitors for their heroic efforts that saved two lives, Three Rivers Ambulance, A.L.E.R.T. and the Whitefish Fire Department,” reads a press release issued by the park on Tuesday. 

Officials urged all visitors to exercise caution when recreating in or near the park's many water features. Drowning is the top cause of death in the park, with more than 65 deaths since 1910. Five of those fatalities occurred in the Avalanche Creek gorge, including one each in 2023 and 2024. 

Skidmore also advised other park visitors against attempting similar rescue missions. He credited Sunday's successful intervention to his family’s unique mixture of medical knowledge and experience with extreme backcountry sports like canyoneering and mountaineering. 

“I think a lot of people should not go in the water and help in a situation like that,” Skidmore said. “Jumping into a freezing river was not that big of a stretch for us to do.” 

Reporter Hailey Smalley may be reached at 758-4433 or [email protected].