I don't know where I am but I need your help!

Posted by: balzaccom

I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/06/13 03:17 PM

Yosemite National Park (CA)
Injured Hiker Extricated From Top Of Lower Yosemite Fall


On the afternoon of Saturday, April 27th, the park communication center received a transfer call from an injured hiker from the California Highway Patrol. Fernando Celis reported that he was at the base of a waterfall in between some boulders and that he was badly injured and couldn’t walk. Celis couldn’t identify his location, say how he’d become injured, or advise the location of the group he was with. Rangers were dispatched to the bases of Lower Yosemite, Bridalveil, Nevada and Cascade Falls to search for Celis and other rangers were placed on standby to search other park waterfalls if necessary. Rangers found Celis’ hiking group within about an hour and learned that they’d hiked the Upper Yosemite Fall Trail and that Celis had become separated from the group along the trail between the bottom of Upper Yosemite Fall and top of Lower Yosemite Fall. Hasty teams were sent up the Upper Yosemite Fall Trail and to Sunnyside Bench (on the opposite side of the river) to search for Celis. A helicopter was ordered as a search platform and for a possible hoist mission. California Highway Patrol helicopter H-20 from Auburn, California, arrived around 5 p.m. and began an air reconnaissance of the area. The crew spotted Celis on a ledge near the top of Lower Yosemite Fall after about an hour and successively inserted rangers Aaron Smith and David Pope by hoist to the ledge. The rangers packaged Celis in a KED and Stokes litter. He was hoisted from the ledge, transferred to a medical helicopter at Ahwahnee Meadow, and flown to Doctor's Medical Center in Modesto. H-20 then hoisted the rangers from the ledge. Yosemite Valley District Ranger Jack Hoeflich served as the incident commander.
Posted by: aimless

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/06/13 03:37 PM

Competance wins this one. goodjob
Posted by: hikerduane

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/06/13 03:59 PM

"Inserted". Sounds like hostile action.
Duane
Posted by: finallyME

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/06/13 05:41 PM

Posted by: lori

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/06/13 09:17 PM

Originally Posted By hikerduane
"Inserted". Sounds like hostile action.
Duane


To me it sounds like SAR talk. Extraction happens too.

Dude is a typical Yosemite tourist - yesterday, as I tried to have infinite patience with everyone in slick soled shoes s-l-o-w-l-y descending the wet steps of the Mist Trail, I must have looked like I belonged there, as I was asked multiple times where the falls were ("well, did you notice you are wet? yes? you're almost there....") On the second bridge (along the river between Nevada and Vernal): "Where is the JMT? Do you know the way to Nevada Falls?"

Not many of them understand where they are... Most of them make it back okay. Glad he was among them, even if he didn't led everyone on a waterfall hunt.... He's lucky.
Posted by: Robotmoose

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/07/13 02:33 AM

It's nice knowing that A: he made it back alive and B: it was a Federal rescue instead of a volunteer SAR so he'll probably be held responsible financially. Living to tell about it and paying for a helicopter ride will probably teach him a lesson he'll share in the future.
Whomever was "leading" his "hiking group" should also be held responsible for letting him wander off or not thinking to stop and keep the "group" together in some form of cohesion.



Originally Posted By lori
...
Dude is a typical Yosemite tourist - yesterday, as I tried to have infinite patience with everyone in slick soled shoes s-l-o-w-l-y descending the wet steps of the Mist Trail, I must have looked like I belonged there, as I was asked multiple times where the falls were ("well, did you notice you are wet? yes? you're almost there....") On the second bridge (along the river between Nevada and Vernal): "Where is the JMT? Do you know the way to Nevada Falls?"

...


Seconded. Something about the usual tourist crowd at Yosemite, they just latch onto anyone that looks or walks like they have a purpose.
My favorite are the inexperienced backpackers wandering around the Vogelsang area without maps:
"How far away is the lake?"
'Which lake?'
Posted by: BradW

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/09/13 03:22 PM

Lost is lost, but you would think someone would at least know where they were supposed to be going (or where they came from).
Posted by: BZH

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/13/13 07:21 PM

Have any of you (who are blaming this guy) considered that he may have suffered a head injury in the fall?
Posted by: Robotmoose

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/14/13 03:10 AM

Originally Posted By BZH
Have any of you (who are blaming this guy) considered that he may have suffered a head injury in the fall?


I know I hadn't.
That's a good point to bring up, and one we'll never know because the article doesn't elaborate.
I still feel that the group itself should be held responsible in at least some degree: They could have prevented whatever led to his becoming trapped there, or stayed with him to help SAR crews find him.
Posted by: lori

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/14/13 09:04 AM

Originally Posted By Robotmoose
Originally Posted By BZH
Have any of you (who are blaming this guy) considered that he may have suffered a head injury in the fall?


I know I hadn't.
That's a good point to bring up, and one we'll never know because the article doesn't elaborate.
I still feel that the group itself should be held responsible in at least some degree: They could have prevented whatever led to his becoming trapped there, or stayed with him to help SAR crews find him.


Assuming they could have prevented it is a bit much - it only takes a second to slip and disappear. The fellow rescued from Dogtooth Peak was seen by someone else who was up there, and then he simply wasn't there - fell off the peak top in a split second.

Head injuries are always possible... not sure blaming him is the right terminology, as they really don't know they are clueless tourists. From their point of view, everything they do makes perfect sense... Clueless is also a feature of dehydration, which is horribly easy to fall into when you don't understand the power of sun on open granite vs. that little tiny water bottle you brought.
Posted by: skcreidc

Re: I don't know where I am but I need your help! - 05/14/13 12:43 PM

We (not the "queen's" we, but the we as a society) have gladly drop kicked on the natural environment. I know many who will only visit the "concrete" jungle, and have no desire to visit the wild places. Many who DO visit wilderness areas treat these places like a zoo where everything is safe. These same people spend so much time isolated from this environment that they have no idea what they are getting themselves into. Clueless about sums it up. All the things that draw me to go out are the same things many of these people want to ignore/avoid; they are blissfully unaware. They have no idea what their limitations are. Paying attention to what your body telling you is only one of those things. Want another example? Just look at human bear interactions in the popular parks. It's really so easy, yet......apparently it is more fun to have the bears raid your camp and rip the doors off your vehicle like the top off a can of tuna.

Hmmmmm. THIS looks like a rant doesn't it. Thanks for letting me vent.

Chris aka skreidc