The call for what would turn out to be a rather grueling mission came from the Ordering Manger at 12:48 p.m. Saturday August 21, 2021. We were to be plan B. Plan A was for the State Police helicopter ABLE-7 to use a hoist to extract the subject from his location. The hiker had called and said he had taken a fall and his right ankle was useless. We had his exact coordinates which placed him about 450 feet below the Raven Ridge trail above Nambe Lake on a rather steep slope. A Santa Fe SAR team member would later measure the slope at 50 degrees and choked with rocks, fallen trees and brush. Nine members of the Brigade arrived at Incident Base along with members from Santa Fe SAR Group just in time to see the helicopter returning to base without our subject. The job now fell on us and the Brigade and Santa Fe team joined forces and started up the mountain as team one. A second team was formed to attempt to get the gate to Aspen Vista road unlocked so they could drive a litter up the mountain as far as they could.
After a short while it became obvious that half of team one was much faster than the other half so we asked Incident Base to split into two groups. Incident Base agreed and team 1a was designated as the hasty team and their mission was to get to the subjects coordinates as fast as possible. Team 1b was assigned to meet up with the truck carrying the litter and take the litter to a point above the subject for later use.
Sooner than expected team 1a arrived on Raven’s Ridge above the subjects coordinates and quickly made voice contact with the subject. Team 1a then proceeded down the steep slope to reach the subject and confirmed the subjects unusable lower right leg injury. Team 1b, along with the litter, arrived shortly after Team 1a reached the subject. Team 1b went down to the subjects location hoping that maybe we could help the subject hobble out. However, we quickly decided that was too dangerous as we were working above sheer cliffs on a 50 degree slope. A technical rescue was in order.
While we awaited on Atalaya’s technical rescue team to arrive we enjoyed a lovely sunset at almost 12,000 feet in the Pecos Wilderness.
Atalaya setup two three-to-one Z-rig raising systems and laid out about 450 rope to reach the subject who was loaded into the litter. Two members from Atalaya and the Brigade medic stayed with the subject to guide the litter up the slope as the remaining members of the Brigade, Santa Fe SAR and Atalaya prepared to haul on the ropes to move the subject up the hill. A technical haul is a lot of work for all involved.
Once we had raised the subject to the ridge we installed the wheel on the litter to move the subject down the ridge to where we could lower the subject to a truck waiting three quarters of the way up the Santa Fe Ski Basin. By the way – it is now about 1:00 a.m. August 22nd. The subject and the teams involved all then enjoyed a long ride down to Incident Base where the subject and family were reunited and headed to the emergency room. We learned later the subject had a fractured fibula.
Many thanks to all the members of the Brigade, Santa Fe SAR, Atalaya and Command Staff for working well together to extricate an injured hiker from the Pecos Wilderness.
