Teton Dam Flood Victim Found

It was Monday, June 7, 1976. I (Scott) had walked into Sugar City from the Sugar Cemetery to my apartment where I had just moved four days earlier and after seeing that I had nothing left to salvage, hiked west to Mom & Dad’s house. All along the way I had seen people standing out in front of their houses with their arms around each other sobbing. When I got close to our house I saw carpets hanging in the trees and furniture out on the lawn. They had already begun cleaning out the house. I went into the kitchen and found Mom looking down into the tipped-over refrigerator making sandwiches out of what was left inside. The mood was the usual Shirley style of joking around, making the best of the situation and finding positive things to note here and there. Stretch said that when they first got there he had noticed something out in the water in the garden straight west of the garage. There were several inches of gooey silt still covered with water about knee-high. He started out to investigate what this strange thing was but being so difficult to navigate in the mud decided not to. It looked like the bottom of a sink. They had seen so many strange things in the debris that it could have been anything. I left to go investigate the remains of Nephi’s trailer that had sailed southwest to Mack Summer’s house. I wish I had been there for the remainder of this story. I got the rest from Stretch and Dad. Stretch’s curiosity got the best of him and he finally slopped out to see what this thing was. He approached from the south and as he got closer he could see a pair of shoes close together. He thought to himself that if that was a coincidence, it was just too strange to be anything else. He then noticed the color of skin below the water and realized that it was a victim. He told Nephi about it and they went inside the house to get Dad. He went right to the guy and moved him so that he could clean his face and they could perhaps identify him. Dad commented to me that the guy was older and that he was very heavy and difficult to move in the muddy water. They decided not to tell Mom, Cathie and Janene about what they had found. About this time Mom had lunch ready and they had set chairs out on what was left of the lawn, but facing the direction where the victim remained. A sheriff’s helicopter was flying around and Dad waved him down. The copter was too light to carry out a body, so they radioed for a military ambulance that was able to make it on what was left of the roads. Stretch said that that it was difficult getting the man into the body bag and carrying him was almost impossible. There was no footing in the muddy silt and the knee-high water. They had to do as much dragging as carrying. Finally there was some footing when they got near the road. As they were carrying the body across the front of the house a news helicopter flew overhead and took the photo pictured above. Stretch thought the photographer had rather bad taste and was morbid to be taking such a picture at that time. Stretch’s in-laws had been to our house only once before, but when they saw this photo in the Provo Daily Herald, they saved several copies for us. You can see Grandma, Cathie and Janene watching as the men carry the body bag towards the ambulance. It appeared that they had been warned by Jim Cutler’s father to get out, but went in anyway, trying to save some things. Stretch said that he had heard there were three individuals who were hit by the water while in their truck, because the key in the ignition was still on when they found it. Another body was found several days later a half mile to the west under the canal bridge by the home where Grandpa Shirley grew up.