It was a beautiful sunny afternoon at around 2:00pm and a 36-year old Seattle man and his partner were descending from a scramble of 5,835-foot Mount Roosevelt located a few miles north of Snoqualmie Pass. The man took a fall and tumbled over 100 feet and landed at the 5,400-foot level on the steep ridge. His female partner scrambled down until she had a signal and called 911 on her cell phone.
King County Sheriffs SAR was activated and by 3:55 pm a hasty Seattle Mountain Rescue technical team headed towards the injured man, followed by technical rescuers from Tacoma and Olympic Mountain Rescue units supported by about 25 non-technical people from ESAR, Search Dogs and SPART.
Two Seattle rescuers reached the injured man at around 7:15 pm after a long 8-mile hike while a Navy SAR helicopter tried vainly to make a hoist rescue but had to abort because of wind turbulence. The Tacoma team carried sleeping bags and survival gear to the injured man while other teams assembled at nearby Gem Lake.
The rescue took a dramatic turn of events at 3:00 am when a Coast Guard MH-65 rescue helicopter from Whidbey Island arrived and was able to hoist the injured man and transport him to Seattle. The climber sustained head, neck and shoulder injuries which were life threatening and likely would not have survived the long ground carry out.
All told, there were approximately 60 volunteer rescuers from three counties involved in this rescue which lasted almost 24 hours until all field teams were safely out of the field at 2:00pm.
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