A 27-year-old lady went missing while riding her horse, and search crews only found the animal, her hat, and her phone.
Meghan Rouns has been missing for five days after disappearing on Friday near the McMaster Hills route, some 15 miles from downtown Helena.
The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office believes she was thrown off the horse and into a river by a strange gust of wind.
Rouns was supposed to return from her ride around 6 p.m. on the day she left, but she never did. Her father reported her as missing two hours later. A search began at 9 p.m. that evening and continued until 4 a.m. on Saturday.
She is known to take horseback rides along the route and is a member of a riding organization. On the day she went missing, Rouns drove her car to the trailhead, parked it, and set off, like she had done many times before.
The next day, a citizen discovered the woman’s horse, which appeared to have been in the Missouri River. Sheriff Leo C Dutton told The Independent that a GPS tracker found on the animal reinforced that suspicion, even though the horse disliked water. Officials also located Rouns’ phone and cap, which were discovered upstream.
Authorities are now focusing their search on Houser Lake, a 3,200-acre reservoir connected to the river and path. Hikers continue to search the region for clues, while helicopters, drones, and cadaver dogs have been employed to locate Rouns. There are no signs of foul play.
Dutton believes that severe gusts on Friday knocked the rider from her horse as she rode along the river, leading her to fall in. Rouns did not know how to swim.
“It’s something that is extraordinary that happened to her that caused us to be in this search for her,” Dutton told the BBC.
On Tuesday, divers aim to continue searching the region with site scanning sonar, while volunteers will explore the ground.
“We’re not ruling anything out,” Dutton added. “We just have to go with what we believe has the highest chance and focus on that immediately. If that produces no results, we will broaden our search.
