Home
«	Training Day	Snow Mo on Patrol	»

I made my first rescue in Zion National Park during my third month on the job. It was my day off, but I was visiting with Kurt, one of the rangers in the office, when we heard over the radio that there was a group of four young adults rappelling off the Great Arch. That was unusual. In Kurt's seasoned opinion, no one just goes rappelling off the Great Arch, unless they were very inexperienced. The Great Arch is 450 feet high, with a grand overlook of the Pine Creek Canyon at the end of a short hike. The only thing at the overlook that could provide an anchor for rappelling is a stone monument, an interpretive sign that describes the view from the point. We laughed that using the sign for an anchor would qualify as a stupid human trick.

Two minutes later, a radio call came in to Dispatch and ended our laughter. There had been an accident. Given the distance of a potential fall, we assumed the worst. I was sent to the overlook to begin a fatality investigation. Kurt rounded up a medical pack and the assistance of the Chief of Interpretation and started to hike to the bottom of the Great Arch.

The Great Arch, with seasonal waterfall

I was the only permanent law enforcement officer in the Park that day. If this turned out to be a fatality, I would have to investigate it. As a seasonal law enforcement ranger, with limited authority, Kurt would not be permitted to investigate a fatality.

When I arrived at the overlook, I found three young women who explained to me that two young men had rappelled down on two ropes tied together. Shortly after the second guy had disappeared over the edge, they heard calls for help from the guy at the bottom. Lying on my stomach, I inched toward the cliff edge and used binoculars to peer over. One young man was standing on the talus slope and the second was lying still at the bottom of the cliff. I expected this would be an ugly fatality investigation. But suddenly I saw the second young man move. He was alive! The focus suddenly changed--this was now a medical rescue.

I knew that Kurt, a basic Emergency Medical Technician, was capable of handling the immediate care of the patient at the bottom of the cliff. He and his assistant, Tom, were about a half hour hike away. If the patient needed any advanced medical care or medication, I would have to provide that. We called the Zion Technical Search and Rescue (SAR) team to assist. The team set up a lowering system, and I was sent to the bottom of the cliff with an empty patient litter to evaluate and stabilize the patient. Kurt and Tom were still hiking in from below, but they would be arriving there before I touched down.

When your life is hanging on two 8 millimeter ropes, they seem so thin and fragile. I had never done anything like this in my life. I put my trust in the Zion SAR team and over the edge I went. I tried not to look down to see how far I had to go. Instead I focused on the horizon and the cliffs. The sun had set and the evening sky was quickly filling with stars. I was slowly twisting around, getting the full 360-degree view: the cliff face in front of me, the open air, and the night sky. Finally I looked down to see how far I had to go.

I could see Kurt and Tom's flashlights, tiny specks at the base of the cliff. They were giving me patient status updates over the radio. He was conscious but confused. They were working to stabilize him, splinting his arm and leg, and securing him to a spine board for transport. I was supposed to make the call as to how we were going to get the patient out of there.

I finally touched down in the dark. The patient appeared to have suffered a head injury in addition to his broken limbs. There was no way to tell if he had internal injuries. He was talking to us, making some sense, but he was obviously shaken by the fall.

Search and Rescue Rehearsal

The other young man said that the two ropes came untied and that his friend fell straight down about 50 feet. The best thing we could do was get him the heck out of there, so I called for us to be raised to the top of the cliff, the same way I came down. I started a life-line IV but did not give him pain medication because of the sign of head injury. We quickly secured the patient inside the litter and prepared for both of us to be pulled up.

Then we were off the ground and on our way. It was an arduous process. I pictured the team at the top, hauling on the ropes to get a 450-pound load back to the top. It seemed to take forever. My legs were hurting from the rescue harness, and I was worried about my patient, trying to keep him awake and warm. Again, we were slowly spinning, first looking at the wall, then out into space, as the ground disappeared below. There was nothing but blackness now. The only light was from the stars.

It took over two hours to get us back to the top. After delivering my patient into the capable hands of our team, I crawled over the edge on my belly. I think my legs had fallen asleep. But the hard work wasn't over. We now had to carry the litter and patient to the trailhead, one mile back down the trail. After much grunting and groaning and buckets of sweat, we delivered the patient into a waiting ambulance for transport to the hospital in St. George.

Several weeks later, I called the patient’s parents to find out how he was doing. He spent over a month in the hospital with a severe head injury, and a broken arm and leg. He had to go through a lot of physical therapy, but he was expected to recover fully.

It took me a while to get over my “initiation” rescue, but afterwards I became a dedicated member of the Zion SAR team. I didn't think I would ever see the Great Arch from a rope again, but two years after this rescue, I found myself hanging there again with a different patient. I guess as long as we have humans, we will have an occasional stupid human trick.

Home
«	Training Day	Snow Mo on Patrol	»