A heroic river ranger with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) took on the class III rapids of the Arkansas River at around midnight on July 6 to save three people whose raft flipped during a guided tour earlier that night.

The group was reportedly out on a private trip in Browns Canyon on an off-duty commercial raft at around 7:30 p.m., but never showed up to their take-out spot at Hecla Junction.

The ranger, Jeff Hammond, was called to the scene at approximately 10 p.m. after the raft’s guide was able to send a 9-1-1 text message. According to CPW, cellphone service in the canyon is unreliable, so the guide was lucky to be able to reach out for help.

“They told me a boat with three people in it had flipped in Zoom Flume in Browns Canyon,” Hammond said in a news release. “They had made contact with one person and two were unaccounted for. All three were still in the canyon and needed to be rescued. So I quickly got back in uniform, grabbed my gear, and jumped in my truck.”

Hammond and crews from Chaffee County Search and Rescue began the search for the missing rafter by riding ATVs down an abandoned railroad track that runs adjacent to the river toward Zoom Flume. Another team headed south toward Hecla Junction.

Upon arrival to Zume Flume, they began hearing shouts from across the river.

“We found the two friends who had been tossed out of the raft. They were on the river bank on the west side. They couldn’t hike out because they were cliffed out by the canyon walls,” Hammond said.

“There was no moonlight in the canyon and the water was roaring through the rapids, just upstream. I scouted the river, plotted a course to the two victims, and put my kayak in the water.”

According to CPW, the river quickly turned into rapids which Hammond had to navigate in near-pitch darkness. Hammond described the experience as “unnerving”.

He eventually reached the two rafters, which were fortunately in good condition. He promised to return to them and then continued down the river to find the missing guide.

“A mile downstream he found her and the raft, also on the opposite river bank. Hammond repeated his process of bushwhacking, scouting the river, and paddling across. The guide was also uninjured. So he loaded her and his kayak into her raft and they paddled back across the river to the waiting SAR members,” the release said.

They then traveled roughly a mile back upstream by ATV to where the other rafters were still waiting. Hammond and the guide got back in the water by raft and were able to rescue them.

Crews were out of the field by around 2:30 a.m., the release said. According to Hammond, the rafters did the right thing by remaining calm, reaching out for help by text, and best of all—wearing lifejackets.

“If things go wrong, don’t compound the problems,” Hammond said. “Call for search and rescue. It’s free and safer than wandering off into the wilderness. We’d rather get a call early and start searching than get a late call and face a more complex rescue.”