RESCUE REPORT: Zion Rangers Rescue Fallen Climber from “Feast of Snakes”

By Tom Vines

Faced with a rescue that was far more complex than they first expected, Zion National Park Rangers were able to successfully adapt to the changing situation in order to rescue a fallen climber.

On May 9 at 1234 HRS, dispatch at the Zion National Park in Utah received a cell phone call reporting that a rock climber had been injured in a fall. The caller, a member of a climbing party of three, had hiked out until he was able to find cell phone service.

The climber reported that the accident happened about 30 minutes earlier in the Pine Creek Canyon on a climb known as “Feast of Snakes.” He reported that the fallen climber may have suffered a head injury but that he appeared to be medically stable. He also described the rescue site as no more than 10 minutes from a road, likely necessitating only “a short carry out.”

The Park’s initial response was to send an EMT-I and an EMT basic, with a BLS medical kit, oxygen and IV setup, because they thought they were responding to a relatively basic incident.

The first Ranger/EMT arrived on scene at 1250 HRS and found the 27-year-old patient conscious, alert and oriented, but complaining of pain when breathing and back pain. The fall occurred after the party had completed the climb and one climber, the leader, was “cleaning” (removing climbing hardware from the rock face). This climber was being lowered by a second climber who was controlling the rope with a Petzl Grigri belay device. The second climber miscalculated the length of the rope, thinking it was a 60-meter line when it was actually a 50-meter line. The rope end slipped through the Grigri and, with no stopper knot on the rope tail, the leader fell about 25 feet to a rocky ledge, landing on his back side and head. To make matters worse, he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Evacuating the patient was not going be as simple as the caller had reported. The patient needed to be evacuated by litter, and this would involve rigging and operating technical rope systems, one of which would likely involve a complex and time-consuming high-line operation across a deep gulley. Rescuers now faced a long evacuation over difficult terrain with a patient with possible spine and internal injuries.

The Zion team believed that a helicopter could greatly reduce evacuation time, so they called the Grand Canyon National Park, which is equipped to perform a short-haul procedure in which the patient would be evacuated in a litter on a fixed line under the helicopter. They soon learned, however, that the Grand Canyon helo was not available; high winds at the helibase on the canyon’s South Rim prevented it from lifting off. Their next choice was a rescue helicopter from Nellis Air Force Base, just northeast of Las Vegas.

Rescuers contacted the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC), located at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, which is responsible for coordinating on-land federal search-and-rescue activities in the 48 contiguous United States. The AFRCC approved use of the Nellis helo, but the Nellis crew would have to go through a pre-flight check-out process, which would take a couple of hours.

While the Air Force crew at Nellis prepared for a hoist operation, Zion rescuers prepared to move the patient away from his current location, which was too close to canyon walls for safe helo operations.

Rescuers scrambled up to the ledge in order to stabilize the patient in a litter. Once on the ledge, they provided full C-spine precautions and placed him in a full-body vacuum splint, which they placed in a break-apart titanium litter. They also provided oxygen and initiated an IV. The patient’s vitals remained stable throughout the operation, but he did appear anxious.

To get him down from the ledge, rescuers first set an anchor system using a combination of fixed bolts, along with some “cams” (anchoring hardware placed in cracks in the rock) borrowed from the climbing group. They then attached a six-bar brake-bar rack to the anchor system and lowered the patient in the litter down from the ledge.
The lowering was complete by 1544 HRS. Rescuers now had the patient on the ground, but he was still too close to the canyon walls for safe helicopter operations. To reach a more open area, they had to move the litter over a rocky ridge; this necessitated a low-angle haul and lower, along with six litter tenders attached to the litter.

The team set anchors on trees for the low-angle haul and lower. Using a 3:1 MA “Z-rig” constructed of pulleys and Prusik hitches, they hauled the litter with attached tenders up the 70' slope, and then used a six-bar brake bar rack to lower him to a nearby trail. The only problem: Because of the broken terrain, litter tenders occasionally had trouble maintaining their footing, but being tied in to the litter helped prevent any serious falls.

When the rescuers reached the trail, they were able to carry the litter for a quarter-mile to an area free from hazards to the helo. The low-angle raise, low-angle lower and litter carry were complete by 1645 HRS.

At 1651 HRS, the Nellis aircraft, a HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter, with a seven-member crew, arrived at a Zion helispot for a briefing. (The Sikorsky Pave Hawk is a twin turboshaft engine helicopter in service with the U.S. Air Force. It’s the Air Force’s version of the UH-60 Black Hawk with the USAF “PAVE” electronic systems.)

The Nellis crew lifted off and the helo was hovering over the patient’s location at 1710 HRS. Because of strong winds in the canyon, the pilots determined it was impossible to land the aircraft, so they would do a wench insertion/extrication.

The Hawk crew began inserting three pararescuers and their gear by wench about 50 feet above the ground. By 1729 HRS, the three pararescuers were on the ground with the patient and receiving patient information from park medical personnel. They then moved the patient, still in the vacuum mattress, to the pararescuers’ litter. The Pave Hawk crew then wrenched the patient and one pararescuer with the litter into the helo, followed by the remaining two pararescuers.

Because the destination hospital does not have a helipad large enough to accommodate a helicopter the size of a Pave Hawk, the patient had to be transferred to ground ambulance for transport. At 1759 HRS, the Pave Hawk crews landed the helo at the helispot. The patient was transferred to the park’s ambulance, which transported him to Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George, Utah, approximately 50 miles away. Doctors determined that the patient had suffered spinal fractures in C-1, T-1 and T-5, along with a minor spleen laceration.

In addition to the seven crew members from Nellis, about 25 National Park Service employees assisted with the rescue.

Sources: Ray O’Neil, Plateau district ranger and wilderness coordinator for the Zion National Park, provided information for this report. Some additional details were taken from an account of the incident in the Las Vegas Sun.

LESSONS LEARNED/LESSONS REINFORCED:
Ranger Ray O’Neil, the operations chief for the incident, notes the following:

“We all know that initial reports are frequently inaccurate. More often than not, the incident is less serious than the report would indicate, but that was not the case with this incident. Our initial report was that the patient had a minor head injury, and that an easy 10-minute carry-out would allow us to transport him to the road. The reality was that the patient’s location was far more inaccessible, and the patient was more seriously injured.

“The incident command system (ICS) works and can easily be stepped up if an operation becomes more complex. Our ICS system for this incident was initially set up to deal with a minor carryout. As we always do, we had an incident commander (IC) who was not on scene, directly involved with the rescue. That was critical, since as the complexity of the incident increased, the IC was able to gather additional resources for the technical rope work section of the SAR. She also designated an air operations division chief who coordinated the Nellis response.

“Recognize what the resources available to you can accomplish. We had the resources to set up a lower, low-angle raise, low-angle lower and a carryout. Transporting the patient the last quarter-mile to the road would have involved a 1,000' highline if we were unable to secure an air resource. We did not have personnel to even begin the highline until we had completed the first technical sequence. Based on the patient’s condition, we wanted to get him out sooner rather than later. Accomplishing the highline would have caused a significant delay.

“Always have a backup plan. Our plan A for transporting the patient the last quarter-mile was a short haul using the Grand Canyon National Park short-haul team. Winds were too high on the Ground Canyon rim. Our plan B was Nellis. If Nellis was unavailable, our plan C was the highline.”

Rescue Editor Tom Vines is the co-author of “High Angle Rescue Techniques” and “Confined Space and Structural Rope Rescue.” He operates a rope-rescue consulting group in Red Lodge, Mont.