News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Putnam County Rescue Squad recovered four trail riders Sunday evening that lost their way near Bell Ridge Campground in Monterey.
EMA Planning and Operations Chief Brandon Smith said the 911 center received a call around 4:00 p.m. from the group. Smith said their vehicle got stuck on a side trail causing the response.
“We were really concerned about the weather,” Smith said. “We were concerned about thunderstorms popping up and the safety of our officers, but we were also concerned about whether or not we were going to be able to make access and get them back out just because of the amount of rain we received over the weekend and the downpours we were facing at that moment.”
Smith said dispatchers were able to ping the caller’s cell phone to find their location. Smith said responders also used the application called What3Words.
“It grids the entire globe off into small squares and each area is assigned three unique words,” Smith said. “The dispatchers were able to relay those three words to the incident command post and the rescuers going out to find them which put us right on top of the callers location.”
Smith said the riders were retrieved safely at about 8:00 p.m. Smith said local neighbors also assisted with traversing the trails. Overall, the outcome was the best case scenario, Smith said.
