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A 27 year-old woman has mysteriously vanished while riding her horse, with search teams finding only the animal, her hat and phone.
Meghan Rouns has not been seen for five days after she disappeared along the McMaster Hills trail about 15 miles from Downtown Helena on Friday.
Now, officials with the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office believe she may have been blown off the horse and into a river by a freak gust of wind.
Rouns was meant to return from her ride around 6pm on the day she set off but never did. Her father reported her missing two hours later. A search began at 9pm that evening and lasted until 4am on Saturday.
She is known to go on horse rides along the trail and is part of a riding group. On the day she went missing, Rouns drove her car to the trail site, attached with her horse’s trailer, parked and set off as she had done many times in the past.
The next day, a civilian found the woman’s horse which looked like it had been in the Missouri River. A GPS tracker found on the animal confirmed that suspicion, even though the horse did not like being in water, Sheriff Leo C Dutton told The Independent. Officials also located Rouns’ phone and hat, which was found upstream.
Authorities are now focusing their search efforts on Houser Lake, a 3,200 acre reservoir connected to the river and trail. Hikers continue to scour the area for clues while helicopters, drones and cadaver dogs have been used to try and find Rouns. There is no indication of foul play.
Dutton believes strong winds on Friday may have knocked the rider off her horse as she rode alongside the river, causing her to fall in. Rouns did not know how to swim.
“It's something that is extraordinary that happened to her that caused us to be in this search for her,” Dutton said.
On Tuesday, divers plan to continue searching the area using site scanning sonar and volunteers are set to search the terrain.
“We're not ruling anything out,” Dutton continued. “We just have to go with what we believe is the highest degree of probability and focus there now. If that yields zero results, we’ll widen our search.”
