Sandra Wilde and Pam Loosle

[00:00] SANDRA WILDE: Okay.

[00:01] PAM LOOSLE: Oh, okay. This is for real this time. I mean. My name is Sandra Wilde I'm 85 years old. Today is May 5, 2023. We are in Logan, Utah. I am related to my partner. I am her mother.

[00:20] SANDRA WILDE: I'm Pam Loosle I'm 63 years old. Today's May 5, 2023. We're in Logan, Utah, and my interview partner is my mother, and I am her daughter. Mom, you had a very interesting and sad experience when you were 13 and a half years old. Tell us about what happened that summer when you were a young girl going to camp.

[00:47] PAM LOOSLE: Yes, the summer of 1951. Like I said, I was 13. On July 31, 1951, we gathered together, and we got on these two large trucks with a back bed. What do you call it? It's all closed in anyway. And we left early in the morning. And we were very excited because most of us had not been camping before. We were going to a girls camp that was near Driggs, Idaho. Darby girls camp was the name of it. We were so excited. We got to Driggs, idaho, about 1030. We were busy putting up the large tent and getting our sleeping bags laid out and our, our other belongings. We had lunch, and then we did some crafts and explored the camp area. The next day, Wednesday, August 1, about 35 of us girls, it was a large group of girls. About 35 of us got ready to go on a hike. Mister Miller, a boy scout leader and a guide, he was the leader, and he would lead us on a long hike up to see two different caves. We went to the wind caves first and went inside. And when we came out of the caves, we saw that there were dark gray clouds, and it was raining. We stopped to eat our sandwich, and we put our dish towel over our headland. Our sandwich was in a little brown paper sack. And then they had wrapped it in a dish towel and tied it around our waist. It looks kind of like a fanny pack thing. It rained harder, and then the thunder and lightning were really loud, and it was, you know, we were pretty scared. There was several that tried to find a little bit of shelter by being under trees. And one of the lady leaders was leaning up against a very large tree. And Mister Miller shouted over to her, oh, please come away from that tree. He says, sometimes lightning strikes in these areas. And she turned around and looked at the tree. It was a huge tree. She said, oh, that wouldn't happen in a hundred years. Right after she said that, there was the loudest thunder and lightning. Oh, I dropped my sandwich and just put my hands over my ears because it was just really loud. And I. Right after that, Mister Miller yelled out, we've been hit. And he looked over, we looked over and that tree that misses holst was sitting against it looked like a giant axe had just cut down the middle. And it was just sprawled open like this. And it. My friend Sandra Hancock and I decided to check on some of our other friends. Gwen and Jolene were nearby. They had been hit. Gwen was lying very still on the ground and she was flat on her back and she was staring straight ahead. And there was a blade of grass on across her eye. And for some reason I thought I should get the blade of grass off, but I couldn't. My hand was shaking too bad. And Jolene was sitting, was on her back too. And she was just a couple of feet from Gwen and she said she couldn't move her legs. They were numb and her back hurt and she couldn't move.

[05:20] SANDRA WILDE: Mom, you and Sandra had also been hit, you and your friend Sandra.

[05:26] PAM LOOSLE: Yes.

[05:26] SANDRA WILDE: Where were you both hit?

[05:29] PAM LOOSLE: On our legs. Later on, they noticed that the veins, especially in my left leg, looked a little different on my thigh.

[05:41] SANDRA WILDE: And you had been sitting on the ground with your legs off to the side.

[05:47] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah.

[05:47] SANDRA WILDE: The lightning had traveled through the ground to hit you.

[05:51] PAM LOOSLE: Do they call it indian style when their legs are kind of like that? I guess, is how we were sitting. Yeah.

[05:58] SANDRA WILDE: But you weren't hurt as bad and you weren't unconscious. But several girls had been thrown and become unconscious.

[06:07] PAM LOOSLE: Yes.

[06:07] SANDRA WILDE: Fred Miller and nurse Richmond had also been thrown.

[06:13] PAM LOOSLE: Right.

[06:13] SANDRA WILDE: But they were not unconscious and they leapt right into medical mode, which.

[06:21] PAM LOOSLE: Right.

[06:22] SANDRA WILDE: Mister Miller had some scouting background and he had a lot of first aid experience.

[06:29] PAM LOOSLE: Yes. And two or three girls that were sitting near us said that they saw a couple of girls and they were thrown up into the air 1012ft or something, and then they landed on their back.

[06:50] SANDRA WILDE: If Mister Miller hadn't been leading the group and nurse Richmond was there as a leader, but not as a nurse.

[07:01] PAM LOOSLE: Right.

[07:02] SANDRA WILDE: But those two were able to save many lives and they started CPR on the girls, which in 1951 was laying on your stomach, pressing down on your back on your lungs, and then lifting your armpits and continuing that repetition.

[07:22] PAM LOOSLE: Right. And they were. Several of them were several of the girls that were not hurt too bad and Mister Miller and the. And the other lady, Bethene, and the one that was a nurse and they were trying to help. They were rushing around trying to help people and trying to help them to.

[07:47] SANDRA WILDE: Breathe and come back from unconscious.

[07:50] PAM LOOSLE: Right. Yeah.

[07:52] SANDRA WILDE: And they would have revive them. But then some of the girls would slip back into up consciousness. They had to revive several girls multiple times and said that they gave the girls hard candy. It might have been lifesavers or some kind of hard candy to have in their mouth to help them stay conscious and not slip back into unconscious.

[08:20] PAM LOOSLE: And a lot of us, I think, were kind of dry anyway, because we didnt have a chance to eat our lunch and have our little drink of water, you know, it just happened so quick. And I only had about two or three bites of my sandwich. And anyway, we looked around and saw all the people and some of the, some of the lunch sacks were sitting on the ground and smoke was coming out of them. And some of the people, some of the girls, their hair, smoke was coming out of their hair. And it was just pretty frightening.

[09:07] SANDRA WILDE: And you could probably smell the burning, the singed hair, the singed flesh, the. And Mister Miller also had some. Oh, you said he was bleeding and had some injuries.

[09:25] PAM LOOSLE: Yes, he was bleeding and had blisters, burn things and. Yeah. And yet he was just so busy trying to help all those girls and. Yeah, he was. He was very good.

[09:41] SANDRA WILDE: He asked a couple of girls to go back down to the main camp, several of the leaders and maybe some of the girls, not everybody, went on the hike. But there were people back at the camp 7 miles away.

[09:53] PAM LOOSLE: Yes.

[09:53] SANDRA WILDE: So he asked some of you to go back.

[09:55] PAM LOOSLE: Yes.

[09:56] SANDRA WILDE: But it was still raining.

[09:57] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah. Mister Miller said, I need some volunteers to go back to the camp and tell them to send help. And so my neighbor Donna and Sandra and I said we would go. It was hard because it was so muddy part of the way back. It finally did stop raining, and we had to stop a couple of times to find a stick and scrape the mud off of the bottom or soles of our shoes because it was pretty hard.

[10:31] SANDRA WILDE: This is the first year they had purchased the Darby girls campground, and there weren't known trails, and it was very, very rugged. This is the Teton National Forest. Besides the fact that it's raining and you wouldn't have been able to see the trail that you came up just an hour before.

[10:52] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah, the trail seemed fine when we were going up, you know, because it was dry. But, boy, after it rained and it was just pouring down there for a while. So we got back to the camp finally, and we didn't know for sure which direction to go, but we finally, we got back there and we told the leaders what had happened, and we said, mister Miller wants you to go into Driggs to the sheriff's department and tell them that the news and tell them to send men and horses to help. They figured that that was probably the only way they could get some of those bodies. Bodies down from the hills, from the steep terrain. Yeah. Was with horses. And so, yeah. So after we told the people in our camp, you know, they told us to start, we were going to have to break up the camp. And so we had to gather up our stuff and try to gather up our sleeping bags and all of that stuff. And they sent a couple. I think they were like school buses. And they sent them and another big truck or something. And they sent those to the camp so that they could pick up all of us girls. And they took us to Driggs, to a church. And there were several ladies in the kitchen, the church. And they had made soup and sandwiches. And it was ready for all of us girls because we kind of didn't get to have lunch.

[12:56] SANDRA WILDE: So you waited at that church until the parents drove from Idaho Falls, which was about 2 hours, hour and a.

[13:05] PAM LOOSLE: Half, I think around two, 2 hours. And in those days, there was no television. There was no. The only way of record, you know, getting the news out was the radio. And when all these parents heard all of this on the radio, of course they were concerned, very concerned. And so, yeah, later on, and several parents came to the church and were looking around and asking questions, you know, have you seen my daughter? So and so. And do you know if she's okay? And.

[13:38] SANDRA WILDE: And they would not have known if their daughter was hurt or killed until they got there.

[13:46] PAM LOOSLE: Right. And it was pretty, you know, it was pretty sad. And I think I remember that my friend Sandra Hancock, her parents drove up and took both of us back home to Idaho Falls. And my dad had not come home from work yet. And my mom was there. Oh, she was so glad that because the neighbors had told her about it. So she turned on the radio and, you know, it was then a couple of days.

[14:26] SANDRA WILDE: A couple of days later, your day or two later, youre aunt Shirley came over to.

[14:33] PAM LOOSLE: Oh, yeah.

[14:34] SANDRA WILDE: Now, you had earned money to go to camp by helping Aunt Shirley.

[14:39] PAM LOOSLE: My aunt Shirley lived in Ryrie, Idaho. And she had invited me up to her house. And she wanted me to tend her two little twin children. And they were about, I think about three. And I a little boy and a little girl. And so I tended him for a few days so that she could do some canning. I remember she canned green beans and some other stuff, raspberries or something. And she appreciated. Sandra, this is so it was so helpful to have the little twins and out of. Yeah, all I did was, you know, I took him to the park and played with them and just did little games and little fun things with them. And so when it was time to, I was done, and she was going to take me back home, and she said, I wanted to give you some money or something, but I decided instead. So she says, here's this package for you. And it was wrapped up with brown paper and tied with some string. And I thought, oh, my gosh, it's a present. It's a gift. And I opened it, and it was a pair of brand new jeans and a very nice t shirt that was red and yellow and blue wide stripes, and, oh, I was so happy because it was really nice. And I was so glad to get those clothes. I took them to camp with me, and I was wearing them that day.

[16:11] SANDRA WILDE: And the lightning struck through those pants. You weren't wearing shorts. You were wearing full. Right long pants.

[16:18] PAM LOOSLE: I think they were okay. I remember wearing them again. So.

[16:26] SANDRA WILDE: Yeah, you went to visit gwen. Now, you and Sandra didn't have to go to the hospital, but several girls went to the hospital for aftercare.

[16:37] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah. For a day or two or a night or two, yeah. Jolene went there and she had to stay. In fact, she went to a hospital in Idaho Falls, and she had to stay quite a long time. And she had back problems and heart problems all the rest of her life.

[17:00] SANDRA WILDE: Was she your same age, Julie? Yes. Okay. And you all went to the same 8th grade, middle school.

[17:07] PAM LOOSLE: Right. Junior high.

[17:10] SANDRA WILDE: Then you and Sandra went to visit gwen, and she had had to stay.

[17:17] PAM LOOSLE: They kept her, I think, just overnight and one day and one night or something up there in driggs.

[17:24] SANDRA WILDE: So she asked you to.

[17:27] PAM LOOSLE: We went, yeah, we went to visit Gwen when she got home, and she had been in the hospital for a night or two, and we went to her home, and she was sitting in her bed, and, you know, we were talking about things and talking about that day. And Gwen said to me, would you mind brushing my hair a little bit? It probably is all messy. And her hairbrush was over on the dresser. And so I got it, and I was brushing her hair. She had thick black hair, and, you know, it wasn't too long, but it was down to her shoulders anyway. My goodness, I was brushing it and she said, oh, ow, it hurts right there. And I said, oh. So I sort of parted it with my fingers and I. Right down the back of her head. All the way down the back of her head. There was a strip about an inch wide, and it was bare. There was no hair there, just right.

[18:42] SANDRA WILDE: To the skin, right to the scalp.

[18:45] PAM LOOSLE: And. Yeah. So.

[18:51] SANDRA WILDE: Did Gwen continue, when are Jolene. You said Jolene continued to have problems.

[18:56] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah, for the rest of her life. She had heart problems and back problems. And the doctors, they tried different things, and they said it must have been that that caused all of. Yeah. And then a day or two. Let's see, I guess a day or two after we went to visit Gwen, we learned maybe we had not been listening to the radio. I'm trying to remember. But we learned then that there was the lady, misses Holst, that was sitting next to the great big tree. She died. She had a couple of sons, and one was my age. He was in my class at school, and then four girls. And one of the girls was my neighbor. She lived on my street.

[19:53] SANDRA WILDE: So was she your age or older?

[19:56] PAM LOOSLE: She was a year older, but the other three girls were. A couple of them were my age, same age.

[20:05] SANDRA WILDE: When they were getting ready to come down, when everyone was coming down the mountainous, one girl in your group was still very emotional and crying because they'd had to leave her sister in the meadow. They had tried multiple times to revive her, and she just would not come to consciousness. So they had left her for dead. Then everyone was scrambling to get into the vehicle and to get to safety in Driggs, and that girl came walking down the path all by herself. She had come to consciousness later on, after everyone had started to hike back down. And the record I read said she first thought she had died because she looked around and she was surrounded by other dead bodies. But then she came to consciousness enough that she realized she was alive, but she needed to get out of there. And so did you. You knew her or her sister?

[21:19] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah, we. Like I said, by that time, we were on our way back to tell the people at the camp, but I. We heard about that later and, yeah, it was my friend Barbara overd. It was her sister, and her mother was one of the leaders. Misses Ovart was one of the leaders. And later on, misses Ovart, we had her in the 9th grade for our first year of home ec. She was the best teacher. But, yeah, it was such a. It was such a scary experience.

[22:00] SANDRA WILDE: Very horrific.

[22:01] PAM LOOSLE: Oh, gosh. So, of course, I was kind of glad to be home. And we didn't have a very big house. There was five. I'm the oldest of five children, and one of our cousins, Frank, had come to visit, and he was going to stay overnight. I think he was about the same age as my brother. And my mom said, sandra, you'll need to sleep on the sofa tonight because Frank's visiting. And, you know, we had to do. The bedding situation was different. And so I was. It was August, it was hot, and my mom had left the window open a little bit, and it was right by the sofa. And I got all nice and, you know, trying not to think of it. And I got to sleep, and in the middle of the night, it started raining and thunder and lightning, and I was trying really hard to be brave, but I was too scared.

[23:10] SANDRA WILDE: Yeah.

[23:10] PAM LOOSLE: And I thought. And my. I was trying not. And my mom heard me, and she came out from her bedroom and. And she laid there by me for a while.

[23:27] SANDRA WILDE: It was way too soon after.

[23:29] PAM LOOSLE: Oh, yeah.

[23:29] SANDRA WILDE: But even now it's fresh in your mind.

[23:32] PAM LOOSLE: Yeah. I can remember it quite well. I mean, I've always been afraid of these kind of storms. I still am. As a toddler, I used to hide in the closet when I heard thunder. Like I said, it was the most scary experience I had ever had in my life.

[23:58] SANDRA WILDE: And the next year, when it was time for girls camp, most girls didn't go.

[24:03] PAM LOOSLE: No.

[24:03] SANDRA WILDE: And you did not go back again for the next four years?

[24:08] PAM LOOSLE: No. Jolene, she. She went back every year. I. I was. I was a bit surprised when I read about that, but. Yeah.

[24:21] SANDRA WILDE: And Sandra Hancock went back many years later when she herself had become a nurse.

[24:27] PAM LOOSLE: Oh, to see.

[24:29] SANDRA WILDE: She might have gone with a daughter. Yeah, probably later that time. You did go camping later. When we were little kids, though, you didn't. I mean, I know this changed your life. I know this was a huge experience, but you still took us camping and tried to have a lot of fun. And we went on the four h camp.

[24:55] PAM LOOSLE: Oh, right. When there was just me and about, what, 13 girls. How many? Plus my other three kids. And there we were. And trying to keep the watermelon called in the creek with rocks around it so it wouldn't flow away.

[25:12] SANDRA WILDE: You made the best of it. I know this was very horrific, very fearful, and the fact that you couldn't do anything about it. This was such a random thing. But I remember the first time I heard you tell this story, and I felt like the people, you told it in front of our church group, and I felt like the people hearing this story had a different feeling about you afterward. They kind of had a respect. It was multiple feelings. It was awe and wonder and respect and a little bit of confusion, which is how I felt, and maybe how you felt a little bit, the awe and respect that you had lived through this, that you had had this extreme experience, but you were a survivor and continued to be a survivor, but you hadn't let this define your life. You hadn't let this drive you crazy. And I just stay indoors the rest of your life or something, but you use this as a learning tool, and you could face hard things. You could face your fears. I know I was almost eight years old when I first heard you tell this story. And it was really interesting for me. It was such a unique story. I'd heard people talk in church. I'd heard people share different experiences and things that happened in their life, but nobody had ever told a story about that. And I remember everyone was quiet. Everyone was respectful and listening, and I had a new respect for you and wondered if I would ever have an experience like that or what my life was going to be like. But you continued to camp. You continued to live. You kept in touch with. You're still friends with Sandra Hancock. You still keep in touch. You compare notes a little bit. Restless leg syndrome. There's a couple of things that are side effects of being hit by lightning, but I don't think. I know they didn't know in 1951, and I think it was quite a while later that they really understood it and researched it.

[27:53] PAM LOOSLE: Right.

[27:55] SANDRA WILDE: But you really haven't. You're 85, you're in great shape, and you have lived a good life, even though this has, this tragedy happened. And I know this affected your family when they, your sister and brothers and other family members were concerned about this, but they. Do you know, if. If your younger sister went to camp a couple years later or if it changed.

[28:30] PAM LOOSLE: No, she didn't go to camp. Maybe she, you know, didn't. She kind of didn't want to go there.

[28:40] SANDRA WILDE: And then Darby campground, that was the first year they had just purchased the land. They were planning on having that be a girls camp, but then having people die there, they wondered whether they should keep that campground or sell it and find another place, but they ended up keeping it. They changed a few things. One of the things that they changed with girls camp ever after that experience in August of 1951 is they learned about first aid, and they still hiked up to that area, but talked about the accident and talked about the fact that it was hallowed ground. Now. They immediately put up a plaque. I think a few months later, they put up a plaque in that meadow.

[29:34] PAM LOOSLE: Right.

[29:35] SANDRA WILDE: And it listed the names of Misses Horst Holst. Holst and the four girls that had lost their lives on that fateful afternoon. But they did decide to keep the camp, and I've been in the camp myself. They did build a big, I want to say, clubhouse, a big building and several cabins and probably outdoor latrines, different things.

[30:07] PAM LOOSLE: Right.

[30:07] SANDRA WILDE: They started building, they afterwards. And they still use it today.

[30:13] PAM LOOSLE: Right. And it's good that they modern, modernized and. Yeah, you know, no tents and stuff because that, that was pretty, that was roughing it.

[30:23] SANDRA WILDE: Right. I know they, I know they still use it today. They still use it for girls camp, and they let other people use it for family reunions and other things. So I went up there in 2017, and there was a couple that were camp hosts, and I told them that I was the daughter, that I was your daughter. And I said, I'm the daughter of a survivor of that lightning strike. And if, I wondered if they were from that area, if they knew about it. And he said, yes. He had been a young boy, maybe eight or nine years old, and he remembered all of the girls coming to their, he lived close to that church in Driggs where everyone went. So he was familiar, very familiar with it. There's a lot of binders in that main lodge that have written stories from survivors and many, many newspaper clippings from all over, not just Idaho falls on Driggs area, but all over Idaho talking about that. And it was interesting to look through that. I didn't have a lot of time, but there were an awful lot of things from that time. There's been a lot of other girls camps. There's been a lot of other things, but where they're been able to use it, it's been a good thing. Girls camp is very good. I think the first aid is a good idea to teach the girls.

[32:09] PAM LOOSLE: Very good idea. And I thought it was so nice that, you know, the boys had their camp and so, well, the girls need to have their camp, too, you know. But, yeah, it was just to see, how should I say it, to see what could happen. It was a natural thing, but to see how powerful that was, you know?

[32:35] SANDRA WILDE: Right.

[32:37] PAM LOOSLE: And I've thought several times, I thought, well, should I put that on my to do list? You know, that. Could I go up there and hike up there and see that little monument? Yeah, I mean, I just might do that.

[32:53] SANDRA WILDE: We might want to think about that. And I really appreciate you interviewing with me today and talking about that. I've always thought this is such an interesting personal story. I know it brings up memories for you, but it's really a unique experience, and I think it's something that is great that you can share it and talk about your own personal experience with it. Thanks, mom.

[33:23] PAM LOOSLE: I was happy to do it.