A James Canyon Rescue

Imagine hiking into a quiet canyon on a beautiful spring day. Where the canyon becomes a narrow slot and the creek bed falls off dramatically into a deep, narrow pool, you set up your canvas and paints on a ledge above the water. What a perfect spot on a perfect day.

But then one bad step changes everything. You slide, then fall, 50 feet into that deep pool, where the shaded water is icy cold. The fall results in a fractured femur and ankle and possibly a broken pelvis. It's 2:00 in the afternoon, but no one is anywhere near, no one can hear you call, and the walls of slickrock surrounding the pool are sheer and impossible to free-climb even if you weren't injured. So, cold and in pain, you wait. And wait and wait for hours.

Luckily, you manage to float to the edge of the deep pool, where you find just enough of a toe-hold to keep yourself from sinking. Nightfall finally comes. You know your family knows where you've gone, and they'll eventually come looking for you. And, sure enough, in the middle of the night after three hours of searching, your father finds you and runs for help.

That's when our search and rescue team, members of Highland Fire Department, Guardian Medical, and DPS become involved in the effort to save the 20-year-old victim who's fallen into James Canyon. It's a rugged area without a trail, and a carry-out of this 270-pound young man will take hours and be a risky undertaking for both victim and rescuers. But, first, the rescuers have to figure out how to get him up, out of the cold water, and onto the ledge above.

The first call-out earlier tonight was for technical team members of our SAR unit. About an hour later, another page came, this time for additional ground-pounders to assist with the rescue, at w. I responded to the SAR building and then, along with three others, to the staging area at James Canyon.

While the three other volunteers leave the scene to retrieve drinks and food, I stay behind with the deputy and listen to the radio communication between the rescuers in the canyon below, DPS, and incident command. At 2 a.m., after a technical maneuver requiring a rather elaborate pulley system, the victim is out of the water. He's severely hypothermic, and paramedics begin trying to warm him and stabilize his injuries. I listen to all of this on the radio and piece together the bits of that communication into a mental picture of what's going on down there.

Then I hear they need IV bags and other supplies, meaning someone needs to hike down from my location. The other three ground-pounders haven't returned yet, so I get my chance to help. After my pack is loaded with the medical supplies and I'm given instructions on how to find my way to the rescuers and victim, I start out on my own.

Though usually on edge in the woods at night, adrenaline keeps my nerves at bay. The route is marked with glow sticks and flagging tape, though the tape is sometimes difficult to find after they'd run out of glow sticks to lead the way. Twice I've had to double back and search for the route while carefully watching my step and climbing over blowdowns and boulders.

After about 40 minutes, I see the light of the rescuers' fire and make my way to where the victim is lying, strapped to a backboard, wrapped in sleeping bags and blankets, and surrounded by at least 15 men including several SAR members. I hand off the medical supplies and find myself a spot around the fire.

A decision has been made by Incident Command, with much discussion between DPS, the technical rescue team, and the deputy in charge. DPS will attempt a short-haul at first light instead of rescuers trying to carry the victim out of the canyon. The injured young man, thoroughly doped up on IV pain meds, moaned in pain nonetheless when he was carefully moved closer to the fire. I can only imagine how painful a long, rugged carry-out would be. There's absolutely no way to be gentle on this kind of terrain, not to mention how difficult it would be to carry such a big guy on a level trail. That said, the young man's size and extra body fat were probably the only things that kept him alive in the icy cold water for all those hours. A smaller person probably would have succumbed to hypothermia long before the rescue.

I watch the victim as I and the others wait for daylight and the helicopter to return. A short haul can't be performed by just any pilot, but, luckily, one trained to do short hauls is available, and a deputy on scene here in the canyon is certified to be on the end of the rope with the victim. I've seen this maneuver on video but never up close and personal.

At 5:30 am, we hear the helicopter approaching and quickly secure all of the gear strewn about. It's already very cold in the canyon, but the wind created by the helicopter makes it downright frigid. I feel like I'm in the middle of an Arctic hurricane as the Bowman bag is lowered. At least rescuers are able to shield themselves and take some cover from the wind; the victim is stuck out there, strapped down flat on his back.

Then the helicopter moves away, so the victim, backboard and all, can be packaged up and he and the deputy can be readied for the short haul. Once everything is in order, the helicopter is summoned back and the rest of us move away again.

It's kind of scary yet exciting to watch. Eventually, the helicopter is directly overhead. As the deputy gives the signal that he's ready, he and the victim are lifted, spinning, out of the canyon, the deputy slightly clipping a tree on their way up. And I watch them whisked off, high in the sky, to the waiting ambulance.

It seems anticlimactic, watching the helicopter return for the cargo net full of gear, then retracing our steps the staging area. We now have somewhat of a trail to follow part of the way up, since firefighters with chainsaws worked through the night to clear a path, just in case a carry-out had become necessary. Thank goodness it wasn't!

But, wow, what a rescue. That's one lucky young man. Lucky that his family knew where he'd gone and had planned to look for him if he didn't return by dark. Lucky that he was able to find a foothold on the edge of the pool, which probably prevented him from drowning. Lucky he didn't sustain even more serious injuries from the fall or lose consciousness (which would likely have meant drowning), and lucky that he didn't have to suffer through an extremely difficult and dangerous carry-out. My role in the rescue was minimal by comparison, but I'm glad to have been a part of it and thrilled to have witnessed a life saved.

A Mock Search

Today, ten SAR volunteers—four ground-pounders and six from the mounted unit—are participating in a mock search in the Gray Mountain area north of Flagstaff. The scenario: three hikers who'd been returning to their vehicles each evening after hunting for petrified dinosaur dung all day (a little humor there because, you see, SAR folks do have funny bones) have been missing for two days now. They're experienced hikers but aren't carrying provisions for staying in the field overnight.

At the start of the mission, the deputy acting as incident commander divides us into teams of two and gives us our assignments. We're also provided maps with search sectors drawn in and briefings about the three subjects we're looking for, including their shoe sizes to aid in tracking.

Despite the fact that this is a mock search, I'm just as eager to find the three missing hikers, who happen to be two SAR volunteers and the wife of a deputy, as much as I would be if this were real. At the same time, I'm feeling more bold in testing my skills—navigation, radio communication, tracking, and so forth—than I might if this were an actual mission. In a real situation, I'm still tentative, not wanting to make a mistake, to say something awkward on the radio, or to have to ask more experienced team members too many questions. So I'm just as motivated today but not as inhibited.

During this mock search, I'm leader of Ground Team 2 since I do seem have more search and rescue skills than my partner. I drive while also handling most of the radio communication and navigation. I have a chance to make certain decisions that I'd otherwise defer to a more experienced companion. We have a lot of area to cover for a relatively small number of people, and I do my best to scan the open countryside, sometimes using my binoculars, and look for clues in my immediate surroundings. There's a lot of desert grassland, valleys, and mesas to search, but that wide open area is deceiving; there are innumerable nooks and crannies that can hide a person from view.

Several hours go by. One subject is found, sitting behind a rock on an open ridge, where you'd think a person would be in plain view. Dennis responded to a searcher calling out, reminding us how important it is to make some noise—to call the subjects' names, blow our whistles, and run the sirens. According to Dennis, the first subject was going to be a "gimme;" as long we were making noise, he or she would definitely respond. Now there are two left, and we don't know if they also will respond to calls, so we have to keep trying.

And we try and try and search and search, sometimes on foot, sometimes driving oh-so-slowly along dirt roads, two-tracks, and power lines. After ten hours, we still haven't found the other two subjects, and the exercise is called off.

When Ken and Dianne, our subjects, arrive back at incident command, they tell us that two riders from the mounted unit passed right by them on the ridge just above where they were sitting amongst the rocks on the edge of one of our sectors. Since the riders didn't call out, neither of the subjects revealed their location. Had they been found, one of the two would have been a medevac.

Turns out, I did look in their direction while walking along a road on the far end of that same sector, but even with my binoculars, they were too far away for me to have seen, especially being somewhat hidden by the rocks. I'd actually wanted to search over on that side, with my partner and I walking just below the ridge where we would have found them, but our assignment was changed by incident command before we'd had a chance. Had there been more people participating in the search, we likely would have been able to cover that area.

All in all, it was a beneficial exercise, giving me some added confidence in my abilities, not to mention showing me where I can use more practice. This mock search also gave other SAR members experience with planning a search.