Man Saved From Mud Slide; Three Others Killed

Rescuers working frantically below a shaky debris dam dug with their bare hands early Saturday to save a man trapped in the wreckage of a mobile home buried by a mud slide near a Cascade Mountain river.

The bodies of two women and a man were found later in the debris.

The survivor, Claire Wilson, 63, of Marblemount, was taken to United General Hospital in Sedro Woolley, about 40 miles away, hospital spokeswoman Geneva Sasnett said.

Wilson, who was treated for hypothermia and a crushed arm, was in critical condition after surgery, Sasnett said.

She said others in the trailer were believed to be Wilson’s wife, Betty, and the owners of the mobile home, Bill and Alice Bower.

Crews using hand tools and a backhoe worked in a soft, steady rain to probe the silt and logs that engulfed the tangled sheet metal.

The mud slide, which followed heavy rains in western Washington on Friday, had overrun a compound of mobile homes and summer cabins near the normally swift and shallow Cascade River near this remote community on the North Cascade Highway, about 80 miles northeast of Seattle.

The slide also destroyed one cabin and damaged two others, Tom Sheahan, county director of emergency services, said.

Dewey Hyatt, a private contractor, said a boulder in the slide “cut the trailer in half.”

Rescuers believed Wilson survived the Friday night accident because he apparently heard the mud slide and went to see what it was, said Don Hundahl, a volunteer firefighter.

“He was supposed to have gone to the door last night, and when it hit him, it threw him clear,” Hundahl said. “He wound up under a cot. He had an air pocket, but his legs were trapped, his arms were trapped, his whole body was trapped under there.”

At times using their bare hands, crews began digging for survivors about 8 p.m. after Wilson cried out in response to rescuers’ shouts. The trailer wreckage was covered in places by eight feet of mud.

The rescuers, removing logs with chain saws and digging with shovels, were hastily evacuated at one point when the dam, formed by the slide and holding back more mud and water, threatened to collapse.