GRAND COUNTY, Utah, Nov. 15, 2019 (Gephardt Daily) — Grand County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue teams were busy assisting injured climbers in two separate incidents in the same remote area Thursday and Friday.
The accidents occurred within about 24 hours, after the climbers fell “while attempting routes in the Sister Superior Group bordering Ida Gulch and Professor Valley,” a SAR post on Facebook said late Friday night.
A helicopter was used to evacuate the injured person in each incident, but the first climber had to be lowered in a litter using a rope system in order to reach “a location far enough from the rock face where she could be picked up by a hoist helicopter from Intermountain Life Flight,” the post said.
In the second incident, the climber was able to walk to a waiting Classic Air Medical helicopter.
“Classic Air Medical responded to both incidents, providing initial medical care and transporting rescuers, equipment, and members of Grand County EMS to and from the accident site from a staging area on Highway 128,” SAR said.
“Both climbers were on a narrow ridge at the base of the vertical Wingate sandstone wall on the south side of Sister Superior, at the top of a hazardous 1500-foot talus slope leading down to Ida Gulch on one side and Professor Valley on the other.”
Castle Valley Fire Department responded to each incident to water down the helicopters’ landing zone, and the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service also assisted, SAR said, adding, “It is an honor to work with all of these agencies who help make our job easier.”
