Two people died Saturday rafting the Selway River. The Idaho County Sheriff’s Office says their dispatch center got an SOS call from a Garmin device that CPR was in progress up the Selway River between Double Drop and Wa-Poots. That’s in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 19 miles past the end of the road. The Sheriff’s Office says it’s not accessible by motor vehicle.
A little more than 2 hours later, they got a text that said a second person in the rafting group had also flipped into the water and CPR was in progress. Those people were about 2 miles downstream from the original GPS location.
Life Flight responded to the first location and advised the patients were deceased. Because of the location and equipment needed, they were unable to transport them out. The U.S. Forest Service tried to access the area by mule, but couldn’t get there because of the steep terrain. The next day Two Bear Air used a winch system to recover them and took them to Cedar Flats and turned them over to the Idaho County Coroner.
The Sheriff’s Office is not releasing the names, pending family notification.
