July 15th 2009 was a busy day for the Yosemite Office of Emergency Services. I think we had two minor operations going and one truly colossal technical body recovery going on. The previous day a missing body had been located trapped in class five whitewater below Vernal Falls and all the young hot shots on the technical team were committed to a fairly complicated highline. Eric Gabriel (the District Ranger) and I (the Chief of Emergency Services) came out to the location of the body recovery operation after the team had already briefed and had begun setting up the operation. It was a grand operation too, involving swiftwater rescue personnel all suited up, super advanced technical highline rigging and a line gun to fire a tether across the span of the river. Does it get any better than that? The on-scene operations boss found us muddling around on the near side rigging operations site. He was most unhappy with us being on “his scene” . He made it quite clear to Eric and I that he did not need us to be there. The operations boss then told Eric not to touch anything and definitely do not to get in the way. It was obvious that he did not want any grey haired old farts mucking up his operation and we were being summarily dismissed. At least as much as you can dismiss your boss anyway. Eric and I crawled dragging ass back to the OES to drink coffee and listen in on the radio traffic at the OES feeling dreadfully old and in the way. This younger generation of technical climber/rescuer was better than we had ever been, faster than we had ever been, more physically fit than we had ever been and more technically advanced than we had ever been. The realization was we had become obsolete and we had definitely been replaced. At about noon The Yosemite Emergency Communications Center received a 911 cell phone call from Daniel Susman. Susman reported that he had become ledged out while scrambling unroped on an unspecified dome up the Merced River drainage near Merced Lake in Yosemite National Park. Susman stated that he would be needing assistance to get off the ledge. The YECC also gave us the GPS coordinates to Susman’s perch triangulated from the cell phone signal. The call was then transferred to my office (the OES) where it was taken by the SAR Duty Officer (SDO). Susman somewhat nonchalantly stated that he did not feel that he was in any immediate danger, only that he was unable to ascend or descend from his location. Eric and I listened in as the SDO questioned Susman. Once off the phone the SDO ignored us and looked over at the status board to see who was available. The only personnel left in the ready block were Eric and I. We were grudgingly assigned the mission. Eric tried to beg off the mission saying that he needed to get back to his office. I talked him into accompanying me on the “milk run” The SDO had actually stated to us that this would be a non-emergent milk run making the point so much so that on the way to the heli-base Eric and I stopped for a cup of coffee and a donut at the deli. At the heli-base Eric and I discussed what gear to bring …a light technical rack …one 60 meter rope…oh yeah my Bosch rotary hammer battery powered rock drill. Off we went happily and content in the knowledge that maybe the hot shots were getting all the glory but we were at least getting a pleasant helicopter site seeing flight into the Yosemite backcountry. Upon flying past I was shocked, stunned actually, to discover that Susman had seriously downplayed his predicament; Susman was standing on miniscule ledge, clinging to the rock on a nearly vertical wall approximately eight hundred feet above the valley floor. I felt nauseous. I had seriously underestimated how dire an emergency this was and the complexity of this rescue. Fortunately for Susman I, at the last moment, had grabbed my Bosch drill. Susman’s position was judged to be too tenuous to try to retrieve him directly by short-haul. My concern was that with the aircraft buffeting I might dislodge Susman from his stance before he could be made secure in a harness. The pilot, Richard Shatto, had a difficult time maintaining a steady hover with the aircraft due to gusting winds. We landed on top of the dome and rigged the aircraft to short-haul configuration. Eric and I discussed a plan ……maybe we should blow this off and send the helicopter back to get the technical team. Eric and I decided that Susman’s position was just too precarious. We would have to do it now! I was short-hauled into a location 50 feet above Susman’s perch where I power drilled a two bolt anchor. The aircraft had to hover in the gusting winds in very close proximity to the wall while I drilled the anchor. I am without a doubt the fastest bolt driller on the face of the earth this is especially true when I am scared which I most definitely was. Not many people can say that they have actually placed bolts while dangling from a hovering helicopter. Eric Gabriel was then short-hauled to my anchor station where I had set up a lowering brake using our one climbing rope. Eric clipped into the anchor and disengaged from the helicopter. I lowered Gabriel down to Susman who was then secured into a “screamer suit”. Susman and Gabriel were then short-hauled off the face. Cell phone coverage in Yosemite backcountry is effectively non-existent. Susman was incredibly lucky, the location that he finally became stuck at was just high enough for the cell signal to peek over the surrounding rock faces and hit the Sentinel Dome repeater site twenty miles away, the only repeater site in that area of remote wilderness. Incidentally, Susman had sustained and recovered from two short falls just before deciding to stop and request help. Now later that day after Eric and I had completed our mission the technical team began filtering back in reveling in their splendor of what a marvelous day it had been only to find the OES plastered with two dozen 8X12 pictures of Eric’s and my mission. Now, I know this demonstrates my truly defective personality but I could not contain my glee as the deflated youth gazed at the pictures and the realization came across their faces of what a truly emergent shit hot mission that they missed out on, without a doubt one of the best in my whole career.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 01:03:37 +0000
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