On Friday evening, May 13th, my phone beeped, and when I retrieved it from my pocket, "train derailment" were the words that popped out at me. Reading the full text message, I learned it was a freight train that had derailed north of Williams, Arizona, with a possible serious HAZMAT situation. Search and Rescue was requested to shuttle HAZMAT techs to the site over very rough roads. (See the location of the derailment on Google Maps.)
Six or eight SAR volunteers were needed but 15 called in to help. We loaded some equipment, including the Polaris Ranger UTV, and headed to the site, upwind of the derailment in case there were any noxious fumes coming from the HAZMAT materials. (Thanks to our Coordinator for thinking of that!)
Just after we turned off the highway, we saw several RVs. People were camping in the area for the spring season turkey hunt. But it wasn't a rafter of wild turkeys that gave them a rude awakening—it was a railroad crew with very big, very bright lights, which I assumed would be transported to the derailment to illuminate the area. Those lights were all on next to the RVs when search and rescue headed out. I guess they were testing them before hauling them in.
As it turned out, the "nasty" stuff on the train—a sodium hydroxide solution—was intact, so crews were able to make their way to the site of the 15-car derailment from the downwind side, which was passable for their vehicles. Apparently, it was corn syrup, concrete, and beer cars that had overturned. I heard that at least one car had gone over a 120-foot cliff. Wonder how that happened.
A few hours after the call-out, SAR members were headed back home.
The next day, it was training from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for me and the rest of the technical rescue team out at Volunteer Canyon, a few hundred feet deep at the end, where we were practicing tandem systems on either side of the canyon. (Wish I had photos for you, but my hands were pretty tied up most of the time. Here's a picture of the canyon, though, which looks like it was taken right where we were practicing.)
During one rotation, I was the subject and rappelled down to a ledge where I made myself comfortable (relatively speaking) and waited for a teammate to be lowered to pick me off. Believe it or not, I actually enjoyed being suspended over a long way down.
Happily, the rather complex maneuver, with main and belay lines attached to the subject (me) and my rescuer from both rims, was a success, and the two of us were safely transplanted back on top. It was a productive day for the team and good to be back on the ropes after months of alpine training through the winter.
But the day wasn't quite done for some tech team members. As soon as we'd refueled the vehicles and then unloaded equipment back at the SAR building, our coordinator called, saying there had been a mountain bike accident on the Schultz Creek Trail. I was already late for another commitment so I couldn't respond, but several others quickly reloaded gear and headed to the scene. Coconino County Search & Rescue assisted Summit Fire and Guardian with what FlagScanner described on Twitter as "a very technical rescue of an injured adult female ... at the Schultz Creek Trailhead."
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