Ever Been Rescued?

Rescued from Jackson Peak, Wyoming 2001

This rescue (Aug. 2001) was pretty dramatic, this is my sister, the rock climber. Injuries took awhile to heal, but heal they did, she still climbs.

Park Rangers Help on Sublette County Rescue

At the request of the Sublette County Sheriff's Office, rangers from Grand Teton National Park evacuated a 51-year-old Kelly, Wyoming, climber Saturday afternoon from Jackson Peak near Pinedale, Wyoming. Two rangers and a physician's assistant flew by helicopter to the accident scene and evacuated Beverly Boynton from the mountainside to a waiting air ambulance. Boynton was then taken to St. John's Medical Center in Jackson for treatment.

Boynton had been climbing Jackson Peak with David Moore of Jackson, Wyoming, when Moore says she pulled a rock flake loose. Boynton fell about 10 feet to a large ledge below, and suffered multiple injuries. Moore provided additional warm clothing to Boynton and made her as comfortable as possible before going for help. At about 1:45 p.m., he contacted a group of campers with a cell phone, and placed a call to Grand Teton National Park. Rangers relayed the information to the Sublette County Sheriff's Office and offered to help. Sublette County officially requested the help of the park's rescue team and put their own rescue team on standby, in the event the planned helicopter rescue was not feasible.

Due to the ruggedness of the accident scene, one ranger and the physician's assistant had to be lowered by rope from the helicopter to where Boynton was on the ledge. After providing initial treatment to Boynton, they placed Boynton in a litter, attached it to a line from the helicopter and short-hauled her beneath the aircraft to the valley below. A waiting air ambulance transported Boynton to St. John's Medical Center in Jackson where she was admitted for treatment.

Neil said:

LOL!
But I KNOW I'm all those things. Most people just THINK they are all those things.

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Hereon in I'm hiking with Neil! Except for that tongue on the ice thing ...

dr_wu002 said:

I agree that it's risky. I've been in plenty of situations where one wrong move and I'd have been in some serious trouble. However, so far only one person has admitted to spending the night in the woods because of an injury and nobody has voted for "full SAR carry out".

-Dr. Wu

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I was the one. (*meekly raising hand*) Although somebody else has voted with me since.

It's actually happened to me twice - pretty much the same place and situation each time. August 2004 and August 2005 in the Weminuche Wilderness in Colorado.

In 2004, I was about 8 miles from the trailhead when I took a misstep and my left knee completely buckled. Only my hiking poles in my hands kept me from hitting the ground altogether. I could put basically zero weight on it. It was Day 2 (or 3?) of a week-long backpack, so my burden was fairly substantial. It was a long, slow trek back to the trailhead, taking several days.

In 2005, in roughly the same area, I was about 15-18 miles and 5500 vertical feet from the trailhead (and nearest road). Descending from a pass on sketchy footing... my right knee crapped out. Once again, a multi-day, painful slog back to the trailhead. Life-threatening? No. But pretty miserable.

(And yes, I'm planning to go back to the same place in 2006.)

Actually, it was just a 3/4 SAR carryout from the top of Mt. Jackson, 5/26/04.

After peakbagging for 30 years and completing the NH 4K without any difficulties at all, broke my left fibular just past the summit on Jackson. Finished my lunch on top and only had Max my 2 year old golden retriever with me, when we started towards Mt Webster. Made in about 50 yards, walking over somewhat slanting ledge, when I just stumbled abit with my left foot, and don't even know how I did it, but as I brought my left foot down, with all my weight on it, turned the ankle completely over and heard a soft snapping sound as my left ankle went completely numb/tingly. This is an ankle I had sprained about 3 times at various points in my life(but not while hiking) and I immediately knew this was not a sprain. Tried putting weight on it once and it just felt really wierd, I knew it wasn't right, thought I had broken my ankle.

Only had to sit by the side on the trail about 10 minutes before someone came by. Turns out it was someone who worked at one of the other huts, and he ran over to Mitzpah to get the caretaker. He checked the ankle, radioed for help from Fish and Game and the 3 of us started hobbling down as best we could to meet F&G coming up. Seemed like it took forever to hobble down, sometimes supported by my 2 assistants and sometimes crab crawling on my *ss over the steeper parts, but probably only covered 1/2 mile or so before meeting F&G who then put me into the litter and started carrying me down.

But wait, it gets more embarrasing. Turns out they were having some sort of EMT or widerness first aid training down at the new AMC building and they decided to send their entire class up to help carry me down. So now I've got about 20-30 people or more taking turns carrying me out, one of which even had to take Max home for the night, since I went straight to the hospital in Littleton by ambulance. At the hospital I found out I had a spiral fracture of the fibular and would need surgery to fix. I think, because I was wearing a heavy, stiff leather hiking boot, when the ankle turned over, it was supported so well, that instead of just spraining the ankle, the stress moved further up the leg and it was the fibular that gave out.

So as they say on Seinfeld; Yes, "I'm the dufus".

twice

First time: hypothermia -- carried/rode out the Sherbourne trail (I was a kid, don't remember much)

Second time: unplanned overnight in winter on Zealand ridge (intended to make Guyot, but for the aftereffects of the "great" ice storm of '98.

dr_wu002 said:

So, nobody on VFTT has had a SAR Carryout or been so lost that SAR has had to find them???? I realize one poster came close. But nobody so far has voted for "SAR Carryout" while 6 people have admitted to pooping in their pants!?

-Dr. Wu

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The "pooping" incident (which I voted for) was with a "close" encounter with a bear. It didn't threaten me in anyways, I was just very new to this outdoors stuff and back then, I was extremely slow going and would hike solo all the time.

Fish

I've gotten lost a couple of times, spent the night out. Once was in the winter in Baxter with friends.... we were taking a short cut to Kidney Pond, pulling sleds. We had no tents but we did have tarps. It sort of added to the adventure. Since I normally don't day hike but do multi day trips whenever I have gotten lost I have been fortunate to have pretty much everything I needed.

I also got lost in a snow squall between Madison and Adams on a Thanksgiving weekend for a couple of hours. I think this was an "almost pooped" situation. I was with 2 friends, we were caught coming off the summit late afternoon, completely unawares (up until that point there had just been low clouds) and eventually stumbled upon a trail. Until you have been wandering around in a snow squall above tree line you really don't have a good feel for what being totally disoriented means. Forget trying to do anything with a map or compass, we were trying to keep each other in sight. We were staying at Crag that night and arrived there sometime after dark.

The only real injury I've had was when I sprained my knee hiking solo back from Garfield in the early winter. It swelled up and I had trouble putting weight on it but I was able to use my ridgerest pad and some straps to support it enough to walk back to the trail head. My car was at Gale River but I lucked out and was able to get a lift there from the trail head.

I started hiking in '77 and started winter hiking around '82/83. No one ever told me that you needed "special" gear to winter hike, or what to look out for. Back then all my gear came from the camping department of the local Zayre's or Sears. I enjoyed spending nights out and just started doing it, sometimes with friends that were just as naive as I was, sometimes alone. I did everything stupid thing you can think of at one point or another, including leaving my fuel bottle at home on a multi-day hike. I often am amazed that so few truly bad things have happened over the years.

hikingfish said:

The "pooping" incident (which I voted for) was with a "close" encounter with a bear. It didn't threaten me in anyways, I was just very new to this outdoors stuff and back then, I was extremely slow going and would hike solo all the time.

Fish

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Mine too................. At night even. One of my first nights out in the adirondacks too. Pitch black and it was snorting around the outside the tent. Never did see it (I was in the tent). It was probably a smallish 150-175 lbs littlin', but to me it was a about 650 man-eating Grizzly, and it was hungrey..

OK, I didn't really poop my drawers, but since I was so scared that I had trouble finding my voice to scream "go away bear" (came out more like a squeak). I figured that the "poopin pants" option was about the same on the dignified scale.

Had a few other encounter that were not so traumatic, so now I think I have a more reasonable response. I was just new and all I new about bear was the stuff of TV.

I count my blessings

Interesting stories, you guys!


I've never been seriously injured backpacking or hiking or spent an unplanned night out, and I feel very fortunate.
I did, however, sadly have my dog pass away on the Long Trail back in 2002 on the first day of the last 100 mile section.

Some of it is luck, some experience, and some of it a conservative hiking style, I guess -- but ultimately anything can go wrong real bad anywhere at any time. Its just the risks we take when we immerse ourselves in the solitude of nature.

When I was in Nepal trekking the Annapurna Sanctuary in 2001 a woman trekker had purchased a bamboo walking stick from some Nepalese children, and innocently enough when she was rising from a rest, she poked her eye with it; and its edge was very jagged -- she had to be heli-lifted out. It was near dark and she had just reached a small village for the night, but there was no phone or radio at that elevation, so a small Nepalese child, maybe eight or nine years old, was sent running down several villages down where there was a phone. She had to spend the night with that injury, and she was in pain and very frightened about losing her eye.

It really drove home to me how any thing that can go wrong--well it can-- and where you are has a huge impact on the outcome.



Sabrina

I solo and will be soloing all summer in CO, I leave no intinary with anyone so that pretty much rules out a rescue, by design. OH Ive been hiking since 78 or so no rescues, 2 forced bivies due to injurys, one bear encounter that was iffy and one mountain Lion encounter that was as close as you can get to dead meat.

mavs00 said:

OK, I didn't really poop my drawers, but since I was so scared that I had trouble finding my voice to scream "go away bear" (came out more like a squeak).

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I've been that scared, I couldn't have moved or shouted if my friends life depended on it: we were sleeping under the stars in a camping area in Yosemite. I heard some noise in the next camp and woke up enough to see a black bear walk right up to my friend, sniff her head and then walk between us on it's way out of the area. After I woke her to move into the car she admitted thinking a fly was buzzing her head and had thought to swat it !

Took longer than expected, flashlight failed

There have been a few times when I didn't get as far as I'd hoped, but knowing that might easily happen, I brought along enough gear, sometimes even a sleeping bag, for a reasonably comfortable night. I don't count those times.
But once I climbed MacNaughton in late April, and with no snowshoes, ran into lots of rotten snow. It was such slow going that a while after getting down into Indian Pass, I needed the flashlight. It worked for a while, but quit. I changed the batteries. I even had a spare bulb, so I tried that. No dice. I had a candle, so I walked with that as far as I could. They don't last as long when you're walking because they lose wax everytime you jiggle or tilt them. Finally I was just feeling my way very slowly through the overcast night with feet and stick. I wasn't familiar with the trail, so as soon as I got to the leanto, I called it a night. I emptied my pack to lie on its padding, and wore everything else. I had a space blanket to throw over me. There was a frost, but I don't think it got much colder than that. I wasn't going to be comfortable enough to sleep more than an hour, so I just tried to appreciate the fact that I had a level, even, dry place to put up my feet and rest.
I used to carry 2 lights. Sometime before that hike I drifted away from that habit. I carry 2 lights again.
BTW, the problem was corrosion at the very back of the flashlight.

I check off "Never Rescued" Because when the EMTs came along I had regained consiousness and reppelled down the 20 feet from the ledge I fell on. I was taking my climbing shoes off and putting my hiking boots back on when the EMT's arrived. The EMT looked at me and after listening to me breath told me that I might have a pneumothorax. I had made that diagnosis before I stood back up on my feet! They weren't very happy with me when I insisted on walking the 1/4 mile trail back to my brother's truck. My truck stayed in the climber's parking lot. Spent the next three days in the hospital on a fair amout of pain killers. Still; I walked out with no assistance, except for my brother carrying by pack and the rope. Note to self: you can't lead 5.10!

Stayed the night due to unexpected early spring ice storm. I setup camp at a lean-to, then took a solo day hike up to a peak. Getting started late, I ignored my turnaround time figuring I could hike in the dark once back on the well marked trail.

A weird drizzel started on my way down as late day temps were dropping fast. everything icing up, candy coating everything as the sun set. I was near the trail but I took the shortcut fall line down so it was very steep and getting impossable to walk. I had in my day pack my usual extra clothes geared up to possable cold temps incase I had to stay the night but no sleeping bag, I did use my poncho as a shelter and sat on my foam pad which I take everywhere as a sitting roll. I found a nice flat against a large rock overhang I used as a backboard. I wished I had my crampons which I left at the lean-to. I saved most of my lunch and still had plenty of snacks to keep me busy through the night. It rained, poured, all night long. I was chilly, maybe due to higher humidity and lack of activity. I was going to build a fire but felt I didn't want to start walking around on the ice in the rain looking for wood.

Morning didn't come fast enough, I took off in the rain as soon as the sky started to get light. I made it back to the lean-to in 2 hours, soaked to the bone. I changed everything I had on, got into my sleeping bag for a nice long nap before heading back to NYC, a 3 hour drive.

That was one of my best educational trips of all times.

Several years ago, my group hiked in to Dial Pond lean-to, expecting to hike the Dix Range the next Spring day, after a cold front (allegedly) brought brief midnight rain.

Instead, we awoke to find everything outside the shelter coated with a stubborn layer of ICE. Not "the Big One", but enough that we could hike neither up the mountain nor back to the trailhead; we settled in for an excruciatingly boring (and cold) 24-hour hang-out, before hiking out and settling for Noonmark the following day.

Lesson?: If you don't have crampons, then bring something to read in addition to a first-aid manual; it gets pretty boring the third time around ! Esp if "gluteal contusion" is the greatest danger you face.

Didn't vote as there wasn't a search (for me), but a rescue... the anniversary is close - Apr 8th. Rafting in a nearby waterway in cold, snowy spring weather. Recent rains had the creek water rising and moving very swiftly. Eight of us split up between two rubber rafts. This area heads into a deep gorge and after some great sport, we came into a sharp turn - in the first raft as we came out of the turn, I spotted a hydraulic that was bigger than the raft and knew we were headed in. We overturned. The water was unbelievably rough as it through me under and under again. Then suddenly, spit me out and the four of us were floating in a line at stream speed. I decided to head over toward the right shoulder battling a fast current, able to touch bottom much of the way. The raft behind us saw me (last in line) and caught me as I grabbed an overhanging limb. We picked up the other guy in front of me at a sandbar just ahead and quickly searched for the other two.

We did not see them and continued down the water attempting to locate them. About 45 minutes later we came to the first settlement out of the gorge. One of the guys with us, knew the water and assessed the situation correctly. He headed into the farmhouse and called in for emergency help.

Amazing how quickly a helicopter was overhead. Emergency squad came to the farm, administered first aid and took all of us into the nearby town (so I did have an ambulance ride). There were tons of volunteers already at the Fire station when we arrived. Rescue mission in full swing.

Sadly, the other two guys were not found until three and four days later. Both received head injuries, one quite sever. Days following, two funerals... not something you forget and hate to have to live through. [This was about five years ago and those around back then may remember me posting about the event.]

I had a brand new daypack with me and had stuffed some beer into the pack. The police rescue team had recovered the pack -- mostly due to the fact that it floated because of the beer. There's a lesson! Does that count as being rescued?

[BTW, the sheriffs said that while we were out the water level rose nearly seven feet and was traveling at nearly 35 mph!]

I also came off Washington in the dark after skiing the snow fields. Got a bit later than we realized. I was young and inexperienced so didn't have any light with me. Scarry trip down to Pinkham. My girlfriend was a trooper throughout the ordeal, but she did break into tears when we got back to the car. To this day... no matter what little trip I'm headed out on, I ALWAYS have a light, back-ups and emergency gear.

Bubba,

Even though, you've told me that story before and I remember reading about it here. It's still a tough one to hear again. Water sure can get rough and dangerous. There was a link in another thread that had to due with SAR rescues and reasons. Drowning was way up there on the fatalities list. I'm not sure that enough people take high water (or even "water crossings") as serious as they should..... And we're headed into high water season too.

As you know, I rejoice with you on your good fortune and morn the loss of your two friends with you as well.

Thanks Tim, I knew you'd heard the story. BUT.. I hope the post didn't bring this tread to an untimely end! I was hoping to hear some more on-the-edge adventures... the thread was great to read.

Bubba that story was a tearjerker. Thanks So Much For Sharing. I really didn't suspect the ending. Sorry.

Nope, never been rescued...but I've had a few hairy moments....

Let's see my very first, ever hike up Kathadin, I thought for sure I was gonna need help.... Made the mistake of listening to another hiker telling us "it was shorter" to go up the Cathedral Ledge trail to reach the top.....what a mistake that was, for me anyway. Yeah, according to who???

There were a few pretty scary moments for me, thought I'd fall over backwards onto some rocks. Well we made it to the tablelands, but that was as far as we could go, since it was getting late and needed to start our descent back to Roaring Brook. I think it took us way too long trying to get up that trail. Let me tell you never, ever again will I listen to someone I don't know and do that trail again! There were times that my husband had to literately hold me to help calm me down, I was shaking at times.

There have been a few times coming down off of some trails that my husband had to convince me to keep going and not look down. Yeah, right! There's been times I've wanted to turn around and go back the way we came, but that always really much better. We have bagged a few times as well because of conditions, I think we both feel better for that.

I hope I never have to be rescued. We typically go pretty well prepared for anything. My husband also tells me that if you can get yourself down under your own power, it's better than risking too many people in the process.