Missing for five days in the rocky, high plateau country of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness this past August, retired Billings construction worker Cris Hernandez defied the odds.

“Regardless of age, health, knowledge in the outdoors, you know — regardless of everything — the longer somebody's out there, their survivability does drop,” said Ty Williams, Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office chief deputy and commander of the county’s search and rescue.

Williams coordinated the search for Hernandez, a multi-agency response.

“It had been over three days,” Hernandez noted of how long he was missing before the search was even launched. “Odds were that things did not look good for me.”

Search vs. recovery

Those slim odds were accentuated when the Billings National Guard helicopter was pulled

See Full Page