Man slid 1000 feet
By Walt Walker
It was a
beautiful day for a hike in the mountains and two
young men took advantage of the weather for a day
hike to Tahquitz Peak. Eric Nelson and Ricky Park
had hiked up the South Ridge trail to the peak
where they ate lunch. They then started out the
ridge towards Saddle junction. While they were
traversing a snow slope Eric slipped and began a
sliding, tumbling, rolling fall that almost ended
in tragedy better than 1,000 feet below. Eric's
painful trip was stopped by a four inch diameter
Pine tree.
Ricky called
out to his friend and was joyful to hear Eric
answer back. Eric related that he was injured and
needed help. Ricky yelled down that he would go
for help. Ricky made a speedy descent back down
to Idyllwild. The Riverside County Sheriff's
Department was advised of the situation and they
called RMRU. Discussing the incident with the SO
it was decided to have Don Landells fly directly
to Idyllwild. It was a known injury situation on
difficult terrain and it would be mid-afternoon
by the time we made our way to the injured lad.
Kevin Walker
and I arrived in Idyllwild at 1405 hrs. with the
No. I van. Jack Bowman pulled in right behind us
at Camp Maranatha. He was followed by Mr. &
Mrs. Ralph Nelson (Eric's parents), and his
friend Ricky. I asked Jack to run base while
Kevin and I packed our gear and interviewed
Ricky. From his description it sounded like Eric
had fallen of the backside (south-eastern) side
of the Tahquitz ridge.
It was 1417
hrs. when Don arrived in one of his Bell jet
Ranger helicopters. I briefed Don on the
situation while Kevin loaded our packs. Don
applied the power and we were off and on our way
towards the peak. We searched back and forth
along the backside with negative results. We flew
over to the other side and started searching
below the notches with the same results. At 1432
hrs. I radioed to base to have the informant
ready as we wanted to put him in the front seat
of the bird.
We picked up
Ricky and headed towards the peak. Flying along
the backside again we quickly learned what I had
suspected. Eric was on the other side! Again we
flew over to the area below the notches and at
1449 hrs. Kevin spotted Eric weakly waving. Don
and I briefly discussed the situation and it was
decided to drop Kevin and Ricky off on the ridge
and then return to look for a helispot. They were
dropped off and Don flew back and began looking
for something to put a runner down on. The major
problem was the lack of main rotor blade
clearance due to the steepness of snow covered
slope.
At 1453 hrs.
Don put a runner down on an ice covered boulder
and I slowly slid out of the bird and onto the
rock. Don pufled away and headed up to pick up
Kevin and Ricky. Only four minutes later Don was
back and Kevin climbed out onto the same boulder.
While Don returned to base, Kevin climbed up to a
large tree to set up a belay anchor, while I put
on my crampons. It was now 1517 hrs. as Kevin
belayed me the 175 feet over to Eric.
All the time
(six minutes) as I was climbing over, Eric
complained of being cold and that his back hurt
him. I thought to myself, "it's good that he
is still feeling and talking." Arriving at
Eric I could see that his lower right leg had
both bones fractured, it was obvious due to the
deformity. I immediately secured Eric to the Pine
tree with a nylon sling. As I began my
examination at 1525 hrs., Don lifted off from
base with Bernie McIlvoy and Pete Carlson aboard
along with the rescue sleeping bag and a Hare
traction splint that I had requested.
Continuing the
examination I was concerned of possible head
injuries because Eric did not respond well to my
questions. As soon as I finished with the
examination of the head and torso I put my
fiberpile jacket on Eric. Due to the precarious
position that Eric was in, I could not take his
wet clothing off. Upon finishing the examination,
I had found: possible wrist fracture, possible
hip and/or upper leg fracture, extreme tenderness
of the abdominal area (probable internal
bleeding), definite fracture of both right lower
leg bones, severe shock and advancing
hypothermia.
Bernie and
Pete arrived as I finished the examination. They
quickly climbed over to Eric and I. As we
discussed my plan, Don was in the air again, this
time with Jim Fairchild aboard along with one of
our Stokes litters. Arriving at our area, Don
hovered the bird while Jim lowered the litter to
me. With the litter secured, Bernie, Pete and I
put the Hare traction splint on Eric's severely
injured right leg. While Bernie and I lifted,
Pete slid the litter under Eric and we zipped the
rescue sleeping bag closed. At 1536 hrs. we
completed tying him into the litter. Checking
Eric again I found the shock had increased and
that the hypothermia was into the second stage as
Eric was now not making sense when he spoke.
Bernie, Pete
and I discussed our options which were basically
two. Fly more members and equipment in (besides
Jim, Rick Pohlers, Joe Erickson and Mary Bowman
were also at base) and set up a hauling system to
move Eric the 1,000 plus feet up to the top of
the ridge. This was a slow and somewhat dangerous
plan, due to the falling ice blocks. It also
meant that we would finish the lift well after
dark and quite possible not be able to fly Eric
out in the dark. With Eric's deteriorating
physical condition, this did not appear to be a
very good option.
The other
option was to ask Don to do something that he and
RMRU had never done. Pick up the litter as a
sling load underneath the bird and fly Eric to
the top of the ridge. This also was not without
danger. We had slung out numerous loads of gear
and equipment with Don and he had flown better
than 300 Tule Elk as sling loads with never a
mishap. So we radioed out and told Don of Eric's
serious condition and requested that he sling
Eric up to the ridge. Don radioed back that if we
thought it was that serious, he would do it.
The three of
us rigged the litter for a horizontal pick-up and
were ready when Don arrived at 1628 hrs. Don
picked up Kevin and I and flew us up to
Chinquapin Flat on the Tahquitz Ridge. We climbed
out and secured a sling rope to the helicopter's
bomb hook. Don lifted off and descended. He
hovered over the litter as Bernie and Pete
secured the litter to the sling rope. They
signaled and Don picked up the loaded litter. All
this time Kevin and I had been watching from
above. In what seemed like an eternity, but was
only 90 seconds, Don slowly flew up toward us
with the litter slowly spinning at the end of the
sling rope. Don gently sat the litter down on the
snow at Chinquapin and moved forward and released
the bomb hook. He landed the bird next to us and
we loaded the litter into the back of the bird. I
climbed in the back with Eric and Kevin got in
the front and we lifted off at 1642 hrs. At first
it was cold as the air rushed by the openings
left by the removal of the rear doors. Then, as
we descended the air became warmer until it was
indeed quite pleasant.
Earlier I had
talked via radio with Gary Fritzinger, owner of
the Hemet Valley Ambulance Service. We had made
plans to land at the Coors heliport in Hemet.
Gary and his manager Dave King were waiting for
us as we landed. We off loaded the litter out of
the bird and carried Eric over to the waiting
ambulance. I climbed into the back of the
ambulance along with Dave and we drove towards
Hemet Valley Hospital and its emergency room that
had been advised we were on the way with Eric.
THANKS to
'teamwork' on everybody's part, Eric is alive
today!
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Eric went into surgery that night and was placed
on the a critical list due to his injuries. Two
days so later Walt and I visited him in the
hospital. He was in traction, but in good
spirits, and off the critical list. Walt recently
spoke to Mrs. Nelson and she related that Eric is
home and mending well.
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