Jolly Gulch Accident

[shagdeuce]

Zion National Park (UT)
Woman Seriously Injured In Canyoneering Accident


On November 15th, a 26-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman completed the Jolly Gulch canyoneering route, a seldom visited route on the east side of the park. The route involves two rappels, one of 160 feet and the other of 100 feet. After completing the rappels, most canyoneers then hike a mile and a half through the canyon to a road. Instead, the pair attempted to free climb up the side of the canyon with the goal of reaching the canyon rim. The woman fell 60 feet from a small ledge to the ground and suffered shoulder and ankle fractures as well as lacerations to her spleen and liver. The man and woman worked at a local resort and made contact with the resort front desk by family radio. The National Park Service response was delayed due to confusion amongst the resort staff, who initially believed resort employees could resolve the incident without assistance. When a Kane County deputy arrived on scene, he requested an immediate response from the Zion SAR team due to the patient's deteriorating condition. Ranger/medics Ryan McDonald-O'Lear and Brandon Torres responded and stabilized the hypotensive patient. Ranger Therese Picard was the incident operations chief and led the rope raising operation, which was conducted entirely in the dark. Members of the Kane County Search and Rescue Team assisted with the operation and coordinated the medical helicopter evacuation. The woman survived and is currently in stable condition. The man was cited for failing to obtain a required canyoneering wilderness permit.
[Submitted by Ray O’Neil, Plateau District Ranger]

[shagdeuce]

Canyoneering wilderness permit for Jolly Gulch??? Now we have to get a general canyoneering permit if we go into an unregulated canyon within Zion???

[jman]

Jolly is an okay canyon - but it is a refreshing break from the norm.

That is curious why he was fined for a canyon not on the list.

[CarpeyBiggs]

you always have to get a permit in zion for ANY technical canyoneering, whether it's on the list or not.

[jphoenix]

Are you kidding? Here's the quote right from the Zion webpage: "Permits are required for all through hikes of the Virgin River and tributaries, the Left Fork of North Creek (the Subway), Kolob Creek, and all canyons requiring the use of descending gear or ropes. "

[ratagonia]

Canyoneering wilderness permit for Jolly Gulch??? Now we have to get a general canyoneering permit if we go into an unregulated canyon within Zion???

If you use a rope, you need a permit. Have for the last 6 years. Not a change.

"My partner fell 60' and might be dying, but don't call the Park because I might get in trouble!!!"

T

[jman]

you always have to get a permit in zion for ANY technical canyoneering, whether it's on the list or not.

lol......whoops a daisy.

Someone told me back in 2003 that if it's not on the slot canyon list - you are good to go.

I suppose, I've been real lucky then. I'm glad I know this now (thanks for clarifying), rather than later...geez.

[ilipichicuma]

One of my friends was there! He was the person from the resort who came to help them while they waited for SAR. He stabilized the girl and kept her alive for like six hours. It's a pretty crazy story. Controversy or not, I say good work to JJ.

[ratagonia]

One of my friends was there! He was the person from the resort who came to help them while they waited for SAR. He stabilized the girl and kept her alive for like six hours. It's a pretty crazy story. Controversy or not, I say good work to JJ.

[Iceaxe]

If the couple had of done this route backward and completed the climbing portion first than the canyon would have just been the exit to their climbing route.... And you don't need permits for climbing routes.

[ghawk]

Yeah I talked to JJ the next day and he told me the whole story. It was his last day working at the Resort. He received the call around 3:30 or 4 and rapped down 300 feet to get to them. Her foot was almost completely severed from her leg and he was able to bandage it and to apply enough pressure to keep the blood flow low. He also treated her for shock. He was there till midnight with her. The response was really slow, not sure how accurate the report was... JJ might say there were other reasons for the delay. He ended up ascending the 300 foot rope (which was on a slanted slope) twice and helped get her onto the stretcher thing they pull people out on. He said she showed signs of internal injury as well. Word is she was okay and her foot was able to be attached later. Then JJ got to pack and drive to the Las Vegas airport at 2:30 am and fly home to New York. When I talked to him it was 6 pm the next day and he still hadn't slept. Nice work JJ

[Iceaxe]

Nice work JJ

x2

[accadacca]

Her foot was almost completely severed from her leg and he was able to bandage it and to apply enough pressure to keep the blood flow low.

Yikes!

Nice work JJ. Maybe he will login and post on Bogley. Be safe out there everyone.

[ilipichicuma]

Maybe he will login and post on Bogley. Be safe out there everyone.

He is a member, he just doesn't get on too often. He'll probably be happy to tell the story when he sees this, though.

[tanya]

He is a member, he just doesn't get on too often. He'll probably be happy to tell the story when he sees this, though.

Looking forward to his telling of it!

[Cirrus2000]

Wow, amazing stuff. Good work, JJ!

[trackrunner]

canyon man has been revealed! his second coming this year! praises & peace be upon his name

[accadacca]

For more on "canyonman" read here: http://www.bogley.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52993

Great story.

[jdamin]

It sounds like everyone’s pretty much got the gist of what happened. Thanks for the pats on the back. SAR did all the real work. I just did what I could till they got there. I recorded the event on the plane ride home in a word document. The following is the story from my perspective with a little editing for the Bogley readers. Thanks again for the complements; Cliff and Gavin especially, thanks for the shout out.

THE STORY:

Jake, a resort employee on his day off, took his girlfriend Megan (not a resort employee) into Jolly Gulch early afternoon on November 15th 2011. I was worried about them both and even questioned Jake about going into the canyon. They were still pretty new to the canyoneering scene. I made sure they took a radio (which is sort of an unstated resort policy when any staff ever goes out for recreation). It was my last day working at the resort so I was pretty busy wrapping things up and preparing to fly back to New York the next day. Sure enough, around 3:30 pm I heard Jakes voice breaking in and out over the radio. I knew right away something was wrong. A few seconds passed and I heard him saying that he had a medical emergency. A few more moments of broken staticy speech later, I managed to make out that they just finished the technical section of the canyon, Megan fell, he couldn’t see her, and she wasn’t responding to his calls. The radio went silent and that’s all I had to go on.

I had the front desk call for an ambulance and notify SAR. I was the only other employee who had rappelling experience so I grabbed two 300ft ropes, my personal medical kit and one of the resorts large medical packs (which I found out in canyon was mostly full of band-aids and ointment for bee stings... ) – Have your own medical kit and know how to use the contents!!! Scott, another resort employee and I hopped on ATV’s with the gear and took off for Jolly’s. We got to the canyon rim about twenty minutes after the initial radio call and started down the rim till we got past the technical section. I set up the rope at an area that looked practical for a SAR haul out (not that I really knew – but it was a straight shot to the canyon floor and on a pretty shallow grade) and rappelled in. I used all 300ft and still had a fifty foot (easy) scramble on a very mild grade before hitting the canyon floor.

Not far up canyon I came upon both of them. I wound up getting to them a little after 4:00 pm. Megan was lying very still and Jake was leaning over her. I asked Jake for the mechanism of injury. He pointed to an area by some shrubs roughly 100ft off the canyon floor (yes, it was further than 60ft) where they were attempting to climb out rather than walk the few miles down canyon to the exit. From where she fell, it was a steep incline until the last twenty feet which was a sheer cliff to the canyon floor. I’m fairly certain she impacted the opposite canyon wall because there was blood splatter on it and the ground around Megan’s body. I honestly was amazed she survived; neither of them were wearing helmets.

I started doing a crude head to toe examination (the only recent first aid training I had was a wilderness first aid course a few weeks prior). Immediately, I suspected a spinal injury from the fall. She was just gaining consciousness and she said she couldn’t move, which was another obvious but terrifying indicator. Her right shoulder was dislocated (so I though, after she got to the hospital they realized it was completely fractured and pushed forward). Her stomach was very tender and her right foot was noticeably broken as it was off to the side. I needed to see what condition her foot was in so I used my trauma sheers to cut her jeans above the ankle. It was the most gruesome injury I’d ever had to personally deal with.

She had a compound fracture (both bones broken off above the ankle) and the skin and muscle was severed around much of her foot. Needless to say, I found the source of the bleeding. I used all the gauze I had to wrap the bottom of her leg where her foot should have been. Surprisingly, she had no idea anything was really wrong with her leg. Her chief complaints were that her shoulder hurt and she was very cold (which was expected from the loss of blood). Once the bleeding was under control Jake and I covered her with our jackets but she was still losing a lot of heat through the canyon floor. Even so, I wasn’t going to risk moving her off the ground because I didn’t want to risk further injury to her spine. My radio barely worked in the tight slot so I periodically went about 60 yards down canyon to a clearing where I was able to get and relay information.

I heard over the radio that the ambulance had just arrived. I don’t know why, but I expected the EMT’s to know how to rappel and be able to come down and assist me. That wasn’t the case. I ascended back up the 300ft rope (on a shallow grade, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounds) to meet the EMT’s. I was asking her if anyone that came with her was able to rappel. I just couldn’t fathom that no one was able to. Silly I know, but it’s what I was thinking. The EMT was an elderly woman who must have sensed my frustration. She said “look, I’m a grandma, and the guys back at the ambulance are grandpas. We don’t know how to rappel and even if we did, were too old for that” I got the point and changed gears realizing I was going back down there alone. I told her the situation and ask for suggestions and supplies.

The woman told me that if she regained movement and I felt up to it, I should try and get her off the ground and in a rescue basket. She also suggested I get her foot into a brace. I then rappelled back in with a leg brace; a large blanket and a rescue basket which I let dangle behind me from my harness (crude, but effective). Once down, I laid the blanket over her and pulled out the brace. I carefully lifted her leg and the flopping foot while Jake was going to place the brace. I realized pretty quickly that a brace was out of the question. I was afraid that turning her foot to fit the brace would tear the remaining flesh and her foot would completely fall off. I simply had Jake slide the foam under her leg to get it off the ground. From that point on, my chief concern was how to keep her warm.

Something a bit comical at this time was one of Megan’s pleas. She insisted she must have stepped in water and that her feet were wet. She begged us to remove her freezing socks and shoes. They were in face wet, but it wasn’t water. Her feet were drenched in blood. We obliged with the left foot but for obvious reasons did nothing with the right (the injured one). I kept having to bs her about why we couldn’t do anything with the other foot, but I figured telling her that her foot was barely attached wasn’t going to the be best course of action… Not long after, Megan began to get movement in her appendages. This was a godsend because her pulse was very weak and she was only getting colder. Being on the canyon floor for much longer was going to send her into deep shock.

I made the call to try and get her into the basket but I was still terrified of moving her. The basket rim was a few inches off the ground and I wasn’t even sure if Jake and I could move her without further damaging her foot let alone preventing injury to her spine. I tried to make a C-Colar out of my SAM splint but I used it for a friends ankle sprain not long ago and hadn’t yet replaced it. Being well used, the thing tore to bits as I tried to shape it. After a moment, I came up with a slightly better alternative. I had Jake help me dig a 3” trench on her right side (where all of her injuries were) so we could place the basket below and slightly under her to minimize movement. Through a few careful moves, and with Megan using her good arm and leg, we had her in the basket and off the freezing ground. We again covered her with everything we had. I could no longer find her pulse and she was extremely cold. I kept telling her she was doing well but I was getting pretty worried. It was nearly dark and there was a steady down canyon wind.

Jake stayed by Megan’s side and did an excellent job of keeping her calm and taking her mind off the situation. In the meantime, I built a windbreak out of sand, rocks and packs and managed to get a fire going. There was a lot of dead Manzanita (a desert shrub that burns at very high temperatures for a long period of time) about sixty yards down canyon so we were able to get our little section quite a bit warmer pretty quick. Something else that’s somewhat comical but gross; I was pretty cold and my nose was running. I kept bringing my hand up to wipe my nose but always stopped a few inches short when I once again realized that my hands were still covered with Megan’s blood. There’s one thing I should have had and for now on will always have in my medical kit – latex gloves.

At this point, we bunkered down because it was now dark. About 20 minutes after, I saw lights at the top of the headwall rappel. I wasn’t sure, but I had a feeling it was SAR getting ready to rappel in. I left once more for the clearing down canyon to radio and see what was going on. As I suspected, it was SAR. However, they were misinformed somewhere in the whole mess of radio chatter. This was an unfamiliar canyon to them and they were under the impression that there was only one rappel. They were getting ready to set up their hauling system. I raided them to change location because there was still a tight, winding, overhung, multi stage 100ft rappel afterwards (that’s a mouthful) which would have been extremely difficult to raise a basket around. Scott, the other resort employee who came with me was still on the canyon rim. He led them to where I dropped my rope earlier and SAR again began to set up. Somewhere around 7:00pm the first SAR personnel made it into the canyon and that’s where things got a lot better. He quickly got an IV going, which was flowing on full to help replenish some of Megan’s fluids. At this point, I stood back and watched, offering to help when they asked.

I was a firefighter in Western New York for a few years and had seen a lot of people react a lot of ways to these types of situations. The two SAR personnel who dropped into the canyon amazed me. They were extremely professional in their assessment (which is expected); but what truly amazed me was how well they were able to diffuse the situation. They both were very good at saying the right things; asking Jake and I to help do small tasks to keep us involved and they were very light hearted when dealing with Megan, who was in much more serious condition than anyone ever let on to. They did an excellent job of making everyone feel relaxed. If I didn’t know what was going on I would have guessed we were treating something as minuscule as a papercut. It might not seem like it, but this is huge. Being able to keep a patient calm and relaxed is something of an artform; and making a patient feel mentally at ease can literally make the difference between life and death.

From there, one of the SAR EMT’s kept checking her over while Jake held the IV. They were unable to give her any morphine because her blood pressure was too low. It remained this way until well after she was out of the canyon. The other EMT and I assembled a different basket that was more suited for a haul out. We needed to get Megan into the other basket; this was much easier with the extra set of hands. We lifted her up and into the other basket with ease.

As for Megan’s foot; after seeing it, the EMT’s decided to just leave it as it was. There really was nothing we could do for it. She needed to get to a surgeon. They pulled out some pretty nifty heat pouches and blankets we used to try raise her temperature but from that point on we were simply waiting. The SAR team on the canyon rim was working away trying to knock down any loose obstacles. We listened to the breaking of branches and crashing of rocks as we sat there in the dark. Eventually the crashing stopped and we got the go ahead to carry Megan to the bottom of the ropes. I jugged back up the 300ft line in front of them to get another set of hands on the haul system. After on top, I met two of the resort staff; Scott and Matt, who had been up there doing everything they could the whole time. It was an excellent effort by everyone involved.

The front desk stayed open late into the night and did a great job radioing in for help. There of course was a mess of radio traffic that made fact finding a big problem, but that’s going to happen any time you have multiple parties involved. We didn’t get Megan out and onto Life Flight until after midnight. After it was all said and done, myself and everyone from the rescue went back to the resort. The kitchen put together sandwiches and drinks for everyone after a long day. First things first, I finally washed the blood off my hands, then ate, packed (bloody cloths and all) and took off for NY. It was a long flight and the calm gave my mind a chance to catch up with the actions of the day. I didn’t sleep at all that night. My mind was constantly going back to the incident and my body was likely still flooded with adrenaline. Since the incident, I heard from both Jake and Megan. She is doing remarkably well and left the hospital a few days ago. She was able to keep her foot and they plated her shoulder. She will be in a wheelchair for a long time but should make a full recovery.

[jdamin]

The last image is part of the multi-stage second rappel in Jolly Gulch taken from a different trip.