Iditarod: 2 Mushers rescued from groundstorm in Topkok Hills

A group of mushers, Jeff and KattiJo Deeter, Sean Williams, Sebastien Dos Santos Borges, Bridgett Watkins and Gerard Thiart left White Mountain around 4 a.m. this morning Friday, March 18.

They encountered a severe ground storm with very high winds in the Topkok Hills. Teams were stopped on various stretches of the trail. Caught in the storm, Gerhardt Thiart (bib #39) activated his emergency beacon at approximately 10:19 a.m. this morning.

In the morning Nome's Mike Owens, a longtime Iditarod volunteer and musher from Nome, called Edward Stang, who was in Council, to check on mushers who were stopped on the trail. Stang pulled up the mushers trackers to see where he would find them on the trail. Stang had received the information that Thiart activated his beacon before he left Council, knowing that Thiart was in need of rescue before Stang left, around 10:30 a.m. Once Stang located Thiart and Watkins, he assisted them to get their dog teams to a more sheltered location and then eventually took Thiart to White Mountain, but Thiart broke his ankle in the process. At about 1:30 p.m. Stang and Thiart arrived at the White Mountain checkpoint. The Iditarod had Thiart transported via a Bering Air helicopter to Nome, where his broken ankle was treated.

Bridgett Watkins (bib #36) had made a call to her husband in Nome asking that she be assisted off the trail. White Mountain search and rescue was immediately notified. In the meantime, Watkin’s husband, Scotty, left Nome by snowmachine with four others to assist mushers on the trail. Scotty located Watkins and her team and transported her to White Mountain, where she was evaluated at the local health clinic. Watkins was transported to Nome via Bering Air aircraft and is currently with her family. According to the Iditarod Insider, she had suffered a broken collar bone.

White Mountain search and rescue, along with support from the Iditarod trail snowmachine trail sweepers who monitor the back of the race, are in the process of bringing both sled dog teams to White Mountain. The sled dogs will be immediately evaluated by Iditarod race veterinarians upon arrival. 

.Mushers Jeff Deeter, KattiJo Deeter, and Sebastien Dos Santos Borges made it to the Topkok shelter cabin, where their trackers show they're hunkered down with Riley Dyche. Sean Williams' tracker still shows him a few miles north of the Topkok shelter cabin on the trail.

Update: Musher Sean Williams has scratched in White Mountain, an Iditarod press release says.

This is a breaking news story, stay tuned for updates. This is a corrected account of the chain of events that unfolded.