Rocky Women’s soccer team rescued from Yellowstone River

BILLINGS – All 21 members of the Rocky Mountain College women’s soccer team are fine after they had to be rescued from the Yellowstone River when their river floating group got caught on a partially submerged tree.

At approximately 1:30 pm on Monday Columbus Fire and Rescue and Stillwater County Search and Rescue responded to a call about the girls being stranded on an island in the middle of the river.

Each one of the agencies has a boat for river operations and both boats were used to ferry the girls to the shore. The rescue took around an hour and a half.

Columbus Fire and Rescue Chief Rich Cowger tells us that the girls were in good spirits when help arrived and that they were all accounted for by the time they called for help.

The girls had been floating down the river on inner tubes that were tied together and when they became entangled with the tree the tubes overturned.

All of the girls managed to get out of the water and to an island in the river uninjured. One of the team members had a cell phone to get in touch with dispatch and call for aid.

Chief Cowger tells us that another rescue had to be performed in this same spot, just downstream from the Holmgren fishing access, a couple of weeks ago after 5 other river-goers were stuck by the same tree.

Reporting by Connor Pregizer for MTN News