Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion SAR Operations

While I was just finishing the above, before I could send it I got a call at 8 PM, SPOT activation again, from Mt Humphrey's summit. A technical climb, in the dark, winds gusting to @30-40, cold. Rough 4wd road for 45 minutes then start the climb. Up and over the top to a fallen climber two raps down the backside, found broken or separated ribs, wrist sprained maybe slight fracture. Two people were very cold having spent a miserable night out looked very pale. Oxygen helped, good sports. Moved them to a pick off point; helo running very late, weather coming in so started down in case helo might not fly in the worsening conditions. Halfway down injured climber picked off with winch flown to waiting ambulance, team continued down, helo returned to remove team (very much appreciated).

Before that mission was over... person over 50 at Consultation Lake Whitney main trail area, in out of consciousness in bad shape was report, flew B-3 helo up in high winds found person in very bad shape flew straight to hospital Lone Pine.

This was a lucky turn of events. It happened so fast, team members were on standby for the other mission if it went bad, and a helo just happened to be in Lone Pine refueling. Otherwise it was a small hasty team hiking in, who would have had to call for back up for a carry out which when all said and done would have been over 8-12 extra hours before the person would make it to hospital.

So we now have had two SPOT activations that were true emergencies. On these two, I cannot say whether the peace of mind the device fosters leads people further into trouble than they would have without it.