I saw a horrible fall today

[MadPick]

Have you seen "Lone Survivor"? Remember the scenes with them falling down the mountain, smashing against the rocks? I saw that in person today ... only worse.

My girlfriend, two of her co-workers and I went hiking at Little Si in North Bend. On the way back down the mountain, we stopped at the World Wall rock-climbing area to watch the climbers and marvel at them trusting their lives to those little carabiners and bolts into the rock face.

We were watching one climber descend, coming off of an overhang. He was just dangling from the rope, swinging back and forth a little. He was about 50 feet above the ground and started to rappel down when WHOOSH, the rope started flying and he just SLAMMED into the rock ledge at the bottom.

But ... that's not all, since the ledge they started from was still about 50 feet above the forest floor. He rolled off the ledge, fell maybe another 30 feet and hit another ledge, then fell the final 20 feet and slammed into a tree where he came to rest, not far from where we were standing.

Of course we all rushed over. Several of us called 911 (we had a faint signal), and they asked questions, gave us advice, and sent the cavalry.

This dude was in rough shape; I was sure that he must have been dead. But that was one tough SOB, and he was breathing, though unconscious.

He was also very lucky. There was a doctor who had been climbing as well, and she took charge and helped us keep him stable until help could arrive. The three ladies I was with are all physical therapists with medical training, and there were a couple of therapy students there as well.

Between all of us, we produced the stuff that was needed: Two emergency blankets, a knife to cut off his shirt and shoes, and of course cell phones.

The climber regained consciousness after a couple of minutes, and after a bit was able to talk. By "talk" I mean a couple of words here and there, with his eyes closed, sounding absolutely horrible....

About 20 minutes after I called 911, the first search-and-rescue guy (Ben) arrived. This dude had been hauling ass; he was all sweaty, I'm sure from running up the trail. He took charge from there, radioing back to HQ and keeping him stable.

More and more SAR and Bellevue Fire people showed up, and the climber was on the backboard and getting ready to be carried down about 1 hour after he fell.

All I all, I bet there were 50 SAR, fire and medical personnel that made the 1.5-mile climb to get to us. I was pretty damned impressed ... my hat is off to everyone that responded. YOU GUYS WERE AWESOME.

We headed back just before they carried him out, and we were interviewed by the King County Sheriff deputies that were waiting in the parking lot.

Here's a link to the KIRO story. You can see us at about the 1:20 mark in the video; look for the fat guy with the camo WaGuns hat.
http://m.kirotv.com/news/news/climber-injured-little-si-fall/ngGq3/

Non Mobile link: http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/climber ... all/ngGq3/ (bigger video box)

Cliff Notes summary:
- Dude fell, HARD. He's lucky to be alive.
- SAR and firefighters were f'ing champs.

[chevytruckman]

good work bud!

[PTmorgan]

Holy Cow! Incredible...

I hope he recovers well. It's a good thing that there were so many people there to call for help, stabilize him. Having the medical background for the folks with you I bet helped a lot. Good job, all of you.

(Recognized you right away. )

[delliottg]

Saw a guy take a fall like that when I was in Turkey in a remote area called Olympos. He was free climbing (no rope) on a cliff face, and fell about 20 meters total (according to the people who actually saw him fall). It took more than three hours for the ambulance to get there. Fortunately there were a few people with medical training including a doctor who was actually on the bus to leave when it happened. He & his wife stayed behind to help and took over from me to get an IV into him (I used to be a fireman, but was hardly qualified to help the guy other than getting him out of the gorge safely and intermediate first aid). We used a picnic table as a "backboard", and a beach towel rolled up to stabilize his neck and a few more to tie him down to the table. I recruited a bunch of beach bums to help carry him across the gorge to the main road on the table. He was also Japanese, and no one spoke his language except his friends who were traveling with him and they only spoke a few words of Japanese. The ambulance took him into Antalya, another three hour trip, so he was without full on medical care for about 8 hours or so. A few days later I heard from his friends that he was on the mend, but didn't expect to get out of the hospital for another 2-3 weeks. The same folks eventually emailed me to tell me that he'd recovered and made it back to Japan.

[ANZAC]

There were SAR people doing rigging training nearby which lowered the response time. I couldn't make it, I was in zombie-land (Seattle) with Captain Keith.

Little Si is one of the trails fire will go up. If the injuries are bad enough they'll also go up the main trail or the Tenerife road.

Josh is a new SAR deputy, he had a busy weekend. Nice guy too.

80ft - the guy is very lucky to be alive.

[olydemon]

wow. There are some things in life I'm ok with never doing. Rock climbing is one of them. Sounds like he got very lucky.

[golddigger14s]

From mads description he was rappelling, so technically not climbing. Rappelling is the most dangerous aspect since you are trusting just one point for an anchor. Now that I've got a new hip, maybe I can get back into it. Anybody want to come with me
The stars were certainly aligned for that guy to have all that medical, and SAR right in the area when he needed it most. Hopefully he can get back on the horse so to speak. I've taken a couple of good screamers back in the day myself.

[mash man]

I am not afraid of heights but also not a big fan of them either. Steve you should have had your camera rolling

[MadPick]

Chuck, he had climbed up the rock earlier, and was in the process of rappelling down.

[Massivedesign]

Good thing there were people like you there to offer assistance. If there were not any boots on the ground, it may have taken a lot longer for him to get help.

Also, +1 for schwag!

[BadKarma]

It is amazing he didn't die and SAR showed up in a reasonable time. We are forced to hike with a bunch of extra stuff even for day hikes.

[MadPick]

It is amazing he didn't die

Agreed. He must be a tough dude, and he had some awesome people helping him while we waited for SAR.

By the way ... if anyone has a personal connection here and knows the climber's condition, I would appreciate getting an update. This incident is constantly replaying in my head, and I'm wondering how he's doing.

[Ops]

so alone in the wood with 3 women?

[MadPick]

so alone in the wood with 3 women?

That's how I roll.

[Ops]

that sheriff looked pretty scruffy though, should have given him a razor