Back Story: All in a Night’s Work
As much as he’d like to be, Troy Garrison has never been featured on the FLW Outdoors TV show that airs on the VERSUS network and online at the World Fishing Network. Yet he’s a star to Kourtney Thibeault, a young lady who might not be alive today except for Garrison’s powers of observation. In fact, Kourtney’s story of survival will be recounted in the TV program “My Kid Survived,” which airs Dec. 26 on The Learning Channel. Garrison, who fishes the EverStart series’ Northern Division, is a policeman in southern Maine whose efforts to find Kourtney after she went missing will be acknowledged in the show.
Although Garrison doesn’t take full credit for saving Kourtney’s life, there’s no telling what might have happened to her had he not been in the right place at the right time. You decide.
A year ago, on a cold November night, Kourtney was driving home from an evening class at a local college. The 17-year-old had just phoned her dad to tell him she was on her way. By the next morning, Kourtney’s parents were frantic with worry because she hadn’t arrived. What they didn’t know is that she had lost control of her car and it had plunged into a 40-foot-deep ravine outside Topsham. The accident left Kourtney’s broken legs pinned and she was in a rural area where there was no cellphone service. She was trapped.
Her parents contacted the local police and state authorities, and Garrison and others immediately started combing the area. There was no sign of Kourtney anywere in the rugged country around Topsham and two days after her disappearance was reported, nobody had a clue regarding what had happened to her.
As Garrison and another officer were patrolling a road that previously had been searched, however, the patrol car’s headlights revealed what appeared to be old tire tracks leading off through the dead grass on the shoulder until they disappeared over the edge of a steep embankment. Garrison stopped the patrol car and got out. Evergreen trees obscured his vision, but with his flashlight he saw that the bark of one tree had been rubbed off as if by a buck, and some of its branches had been torn off.
Garrison and his partner notified their office, and while they waited Garrison inspected the gully further with his flashlight. As he swept the area beyond the thick growth at roadside, the beam suddenly revealed the back rear fender of a car. It was Kourtney’s.
Soon help arrived, and rescuers spent more than 30 minutes freeing Kourtney, who suffered extensive head and leg injuries. After being hoisted up to the highway in a Stokes basket, she received first-aid treatment to stabilize her. She was then transported to a hospital. The 20-degree weather and two days of exposure with no food and water or heat left Kourtney dehydrated and hypothermic. Still, she recovered completely and now her life is back to normal.
Garrison received public accolades for his part in the search-and-rescue effort and effusive thanks from Kourtney and her family. He’s rightfully proud that he was able to help in the effort to save another person’s life. Beyond that, he regards what he did as part of the job description.
Though the Maine policeman has been fishing as a co-angler in various FLW events, he plans to fish as a pro in 2011 and see where it takes him.
“I’ve been bitten bad by the tournament bug. I want to fish as many events as I can,” says Garrison. “A friend of mine talked me into going to fish the Northern Division tournament at Lake Champlain and I really enjoyed the whole program. I got paired with Ish Monroe at the tournament. We became friends and now we stay in touch. Tournament fishermen are some of the finest people I know.”
Come to think of it, Kourtney Thibeault might borrow that last sentence to describe Troy Garrison. In fact, she already has.