|
  |
Two men slid 500 feet down ice
By Walt Walker
Saturdays were
not invented for work, it says somewhere, I'm
sure. However, I was bending the rule trying to
lower the pile that had accumulated on my desk.
There is a window right in front, of my desk,
that looks out onto the San Jacinto Mountains. I
could see from Tahquitz Peak all the way to Mt.
San Jacinto, the entire range was covered with a
mantle of snow. My business is not open on
Saturdays and when the telephone rang, I thought
it was probably my wife calling. It was her, but
not with news of what time dinner was going to
be, she told me that the Banning station of the
Riverside County Sheriff's Department had called
for RMRU's help. There were two men down one of
the ice chutes near the Palm Springs Aerial
Tramway upper terminal.
It only took a
minute to turn out the lights, lock the door, and
speed away towards the garage where the No. I
rescue van is parked. I opened the garage door,
started the van, drove it out, backed my Wagoneer
in and headed towards my house. Once in the
house, I stripped off my clothes, put on my long
poly underwear, my wool pants and shirt were
next. The pack room was my next stop. I took all
my winter gear, ice axe, crampons and snowshoes,
big soft pack, my down pants and jacket were
stuffed into a stuff bag and I took the entire
pile out to the van and loaded it in. Elapsed
time, from phone members call to driving off for
the mountain, 27 minutes.
Upon arrival
at the tram I was advised that the state park
rangers had descended to the two men and they
were both injured, one had minor injuries and the
other had sustained a head injury. They both were
better than 500 feet down from the area that had
previously been nicknamed the 'launching pad' by
RMRU because of the recent rescues that had
occurred there.
When the No. 2 rescue van arrived we
began unloading, quite literally, thousands of
feet of PMI rescue rope. The ABS plastic litter,
portable oxygen system, rescue sleeping bag, bags
of carabiners, technical hardware, nylon slings,
portable spotlights and many other small items
were all carried up to the lower terminal of the
tram and loaded into the waiting tram car. (The
Palm Springs Aerial Tramway personnel were once
again very helpful in getting us to the top as
quickly as possible.)
After arriving
at the upper terminal we quickly carried all the
equipment down to Long Valley where most of it
was loaded onto a sled that was pulled by a
snow-mobile. RMRU members, tram personnel,
sheriff's deputies and state park rangers carried
the balance of the equipment over to the staging
area. Within minutes we had set up an anchor,
around a very large pine tree, and quickly sent
two RMRU members down on the new rescue rope.
Upon reaching the subjects, they discussed the
situation with the state park rangers who had
given first aid. The one man was only slightly
injured, a probable ankle sprain, the other man
had sustained a serious head injury and was not
completely coherent. We started oxygen going for
the man with the head injury. He had been loaded
into a stokes litter that was attached to a
toboggan. The RMRU members above had set up a
mechanical advantage system and were ready to
lift when we radioed up that we were ready to go.
The lift was started and it was a very difficult
job due to the snow conditions. Part of the time the snow was very
hard and supported the weight of the rescuers,
the balance of the time the snow crust would
break and down you went. It was a constant battle
and was further complicated because we would have
to radio up and tell the haulers to stop each
time we sank into the snow up to our knees or
better.
When we
finally reached the top, we immediately moved the
litter to the sled and transported the subject
slowly over to Long Valley. While we were
carrying the litter up to the tram, the rest of
the team was bringing up the second injured man.
We had radioed out to have an ambulance meet us
at the lower tram. Our portable oxygen system ran
out just as we arrived at the lower terminal. The
man with the head injury was loaded into the
ambulance and was sent off to the Palm Springs
hospital.
The whole
process was repeated for the second man with the
ankle injury. It was almost midnight when we
headed towards the restaurant and the dinner we
had missed during this successful double rescue.
|
  |