$1.25
your homegrown newspaper October 22, 2025
Vol. 22, No. 7
Charlo man assists in Bob Marshall rescue By Joyce Lobeck for the Valley Journal
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Energy Summit pg. 7
Scholars program pg. 12
Sports pg. 16
s far as Tom Zimmerman is concerned, a young man from Charlo is a true hero. “I wouldn’t be telling my story if not for him,” Zimmerman said of Marty Frisk. “He’s the hero. I want the world to know what he did.” Frisk could not be reached for comment. Zimmerman’s story began on Sept. 5 when he was clearing a trail in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in the Ovando area in preparation for hunting when either he or his horse slid and went over a 15-foot cliff. Zimmerman isn’t sure which and isn’t sure if he lost consciousness. But either way, he finally realized he was lying in a pile of rocks and logs at the base of the cliff in extreme pain as his horse had rolled over him and crushed his ribs. His uninjured horse was standing beside him. “I knew I was in bad shape,” he recalled. “But I knew I had to get out of there.” He managed to pull himself back up to the trail and, leading his horse with his pack horse following, he walked as far as he could until it was getting dark. “The pain got so bad I had to quit for the night. I was
COURTESY PHOTO
Tom Zimmerman, from Stevensville, credits Charlo resident Marty Frisk with saving his life after he and his horse suffered a fall during a Septbember pack trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
going to take a little break so I grabbed my sleeping bag and a
water bottle, laid down on the ground and pulled my sleeping
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bag over me. I couldn’t move after that. I heard an elk bugle 100 yards from me all night. He was talking to me. I knew it was no use to holler … no one was around. But I was hoping a kid I had seen up there the last couple of years would come hunting.” Around 8:30 in the morning, he heard a horseshoe hitting rocks, Zimmerman said, so he hollered. The “kid” heard him and asked what was wrong. It was Marty Fisk. After putting his sleeping bag on Zimmerman and giving him juice and a granola bar, Frisk rode out to where he could get a cell phone signal and called 911 and Zimmerman’s girlfriend and daughter. “It was like in the movies,” Zimmerman said. “I could hear the Two Bear helicopter come. It flew over three times but couldn’t see me. The kid came back five hours later, switched horses, put my sleeping bag with an orange liner in the meadow and called 911 again. The helicopter came back about five hours later and hoisted me up.” Zimmerman was taken to the hospital in Seeley Lake, then flown by Life Flight to St. Pat’s Hospital in Missoula, where he see page 2