I started feeling guilty standing around watching all the search and rescue members who’d responded.”. “[The victim is] going to be in an ICU for probably a few days,” Hehir said from Telluride’s hospital Thursday morning. Sitting in the hostel in Telluride, CO The Husband (really he was The Boyfriend at that time) and I were mapping out our route from Telluride to Ouray. One side was a drop to the ocean, the other side was a volcano. No closures. Ophir Pass - Open. It has been a stressful three weeks for Hehir, treating sick patients in full protective gear and worrying about the virus spreading. Luckily he is not buried, so his partner, 45-year-old Ophir resident Nathan Schroepfer, who’d watched the slide start less than a foot below his snowboard, descends and finds him relatively quickly. We’re all really healthy people in these mountain communities, and the strong and the mighty were the ones who showed up during the rescue. She cut his backpack off in preparation for CPR. He had to test out the new Subaru and it’s four wheel drive. =). Winds shifted from the south to the southwest, wind speeds above treeline were 30 mph and increased to 50 mph through the day. I can’t even recall our stay in Ouray I was so drained from the hike the day before and stressed from the drive through Imogene Pass. Email. The sleeping bag starts flapping at his feet and Hehir has to lean out of the ship and secure it from flying up into the rotors. High Point 11,789 ft., Best time to go Late June-Sept. So much for saving time and enjoying Ouray longer. I love how you start it:”some of the worst decisions have the best stories”, Thanks! The doctor listens; it doesn’t sound great. He always is and I was interested in seeing the old mining town… That was just the beginning of the ride from hell. Someone half-jokingly brings up social distancing, knowing it’s impossible right now. I think it was 1998. Thank you. Skier 2 sustained a mild neck injury from the event. Hehir hops in the front. Pretty crazy… Have you hiked, biked or driven up Imogene Pass? People should be able to get outside still.”. The road on Imogene Pass is rocky, steep and very narrow. She turned around and started working downhill. He said goodbye, donned an N95 mask, gown, gloves, and faceshield and went back to work. The Allens listen as someone skiing in East Waterfall Canyon reports an avalanche with a critically injured victim. “The area’s had full burials, people getting banged up, lost gear, people having to run for their lives from an avalanche coming down at them,” says Matt Steen, a local forecaster and Helitrax’s snow-safety director. That sounds like it was intense! Last Dollar Pass - Open. The Sugar Shack slide was one of seven human-triggered avalanches in eight days to catch a skier or snowboarder, the spookiest stretch in decades. “Half the town of Telluride and half the town of Ophir was out skiing those hills the day of the accident,” Jamie told me. On Tuesday, March 24, Sonja and Bill Allen’s home radio crackles to life at 1:10 p.m. Nevertheless, later on Wednesday, San Miguel County posted no-parking signs on Ophir Road and sent out a text to residents that read, in part, “PLEASE DO YOUR PART AND DO NOT PROCEED INTO THE BACKCOUNTRY.” Masters says that the message still hinges on public cooperation. District 2. He gets in touch with the reporting party and asks if the victim can get out on their own. “I don’t think closing the backcountry is the best answer,” Rector says. “So people aren’t following their routines like they usually would. Around the same time, Todd Rector, a search-and-rescue specialist with the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office, receives a call from his dispatch center alerting him of the accident. They include a local mountain guide as well as an EMT. He skied this morning above town, as did Bill Allen, an Everest guide and the owner of the international outfitter Mountain Trip. But we were focused on getting him out of there and ensuring that he didn’t bleed out on our watch, more so than we were worried about germs at that point.”, As the crowd of rescuers on scene grows, everyone works with their ski gloves on, in close proximity. Since Skier 1 had been uphill, she moved uphill and lost the signal. As the volunteers stand six feet apart awaiting orders, he dispatches a hasty team to the accident site with prescription painkillers. They quickly encountered debris from natural avalanches that ran on January 18, 2019. Yet with many people newly unemployed as the economy grinds to a halt and two feet of fresh powder sitting idle after a dry winter, dozens convened atop peaks and chutes to take advantage. Help fund our award-winning journalism with a contribution today. Accident Summary. Devon O'Neil. The victim’s line choice will attract scrutiny due to the consequences, but Steen says it was hardly egregious. District 1. High above the canyon floor, a local man in his thirties has come to rest halfway down a run called Sugar Shack, a steep, northwest-facing chute through sparse trees where avalanches have buried people before and which requires about a 90-minute climb from Ophir. Air escapes from the lung into the chest cavity, and if enough air builds up it can compress the lung and create so much pressure that it prevents blood from flowing to the heart. He knew about the significant natural avalanche cycle that occurred earlier in the week. We took the 50 mile paved route back to Ouray and made it back, from Telluride, in something over an hour. The views on the drive from Telluride to Ouray over Imogene Pass were out of this world amazing. Hehir’s biggest concern all along has been the victim developing a tension pneumothorax, which results from a breached lung and can prove fatal relatively quickly. “It’s a notorious area,” he says. Rector promptly sends out a call to nearly 60 volunteer SAR members, requesting a full response. The name of the victim has not been released yet, he was the first in a group of 4 to drop into the zone. They were on a northwest-facing, 25-27 degree slope. People chuckle nervously and back away from each other. “Everyone involved, absolutely, saved this guy’s life,” Hehir said. Hehir, Allen, and Sloan arrive from Ophir and immediately dig out a platform where they transition the victim to Allen’s sled. That looks scary! Time outside is essential—and we can help you make the most of it. We don’t have any staff to do that. It got us up and down the mountain safely without a scratch (on it). The situation sounds dire: potentially two broken femurs and a fractured pelvis. There is no cell service in Ophir, Colorado, an 1880s mining town 20 minutes south of Telluride encircled by 13,000-foot peaks. And you’ll get to pass through some old mining ghost towns,” I vividly remember him saying. I think I would have had a panic attack, lol! Visibility decreased to around 500 feet. That became very clear to me as The Husband came to a sharp switch back (aka turn in the road) about a mile into the drive and said, “Perhaps we should turn around. But no one has exposed the fragile system, until now. Didn’t have to go up scary mountains, but the paved road did end and had to go through a crazy riverbed. No thank you. No joke, there were maybe three inches from the tires and the edge of the road. By the time Skier 1 was fully uncovered, he was breathing and able to sit up on his own. Their goal was a large stand of trees around 11,400 feet on the east side of the bowl.
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