A four-time Buhl High School wrestling state champion is hospitalized in Boise after injuries sustained from a hiking accident Monday in the White Cloud Mountains in central Idaho.
Buhl’s Kade Orr was hiking with his father and wrestling buddy, Gooding’s Tayten Gillette, when tumbling boulders hit him in the back as they made their way through a ravine that Gillette described as a “gravel mountain.”
“I just look up and a pretty decent-sized boulder, probably going 30 mph, hit him square in the back right shoulder,” Gillette told the Times-News on Tuesday. “Lower back. He was up kinda on a ledge and it knocked him completely 360 in the air and he dropped backward so he was on his back and his head was going down. He was going backward down the mountain on his back.”
Gillette, who said he was about 10 yards in front of Orr, jumped toward him and landed on top of Orr.
“When I caught him, there was another ledge, like a six-foot drop,” Gillette said. “But if he would’ve kept going, he would’ve died. He would’ve rolled down. It was another half-mile down the mountain. There was nothing stopping him.”
He added, “A leap of faith.”
Rocks tumbled after Gillette landed on Orr but Gillette used his backpack with an aluminum frame to shield the rocks.
“I just tilted my head up and I was holding onto Kade with one arm, I had my other arm holding onto the rock,” Gillette said. “I leaned forward, put my head down and just let the rocks beat the piss out of me for two minutes so they didn’t hit me or Kade.”
Gillette then pulled Orr off the ground and dragged him to safety.
“I looked at him, I looked him in the eyes and how he was and I knew right then we had to get help,” Gillette said.
Gillette texted 911 via the SOS feature on the iPhone. Gillette said he carried Orr a quarter-mile down the mountain toward a meadow.
He heard helicopters whirring as Orr’s father burned his sleeping bag in an attempt to attract the helicopter.
“They didn’t see it,” Gillette said. “They passed over us like 10 times.”
Gillette later used a flint stone to light a fire.
“As I was getting a fire going, I looked over at Kade and he was going into hypothermic shock,” Gillette said. “So I had to throw him in my sleeping bag with my sweatshirt and throw him by the fire.
Orr was later life-flighted to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise to receive treatment for collapsed lungs, broken ribs, a broken scapula and internal injuries, according to Orr’s GoFundMe.
Orr graduated from Buhl High School in 2022 and recently finished his freshman year at Kent State University in Ohio, where he wrestled.
“I’m just glad Kade is OK,” Gillette said.
Orr recently entered the transfer portal to wrestle at Utah Valley University. Gillette, a three-time state champion for Gooding High School, spent his freshman year at University of Northern Colorado but transferred to NCAA Division II Chadron State University in Nebraska.
“Just shows wrestlers are the toughest ones out there. I think me and him will definitely gain a lot more closeness from this,” Gillette said. “We’re still super in touch but we will never forget this. That’s for sure.”