by CJ Murphy
“Comm Center received. Equine unit will be called.”
Chance patted her horse’s neck. “Okay, Kelly, let’s find that kid.” The horse gently nickered a response and pushed on.
The laurel bushes were everywhere. Twisted branches and roots created thick cover that was difficult to maneuver through or around. After another ten minutes, Chance had to dismount and lead Kelly through what openings she could find, as she tried to meet up with a trail that would bring her close to the point. From there, she would need to walk in to find the trapped girl. Chance prayed the frantic parents hadn’t injured themselves in an attempt to get to the girl.
Zeus lagged behind slightly as they approached the area she’d need to traverse on foot. When Kelly reached an impasse at the grey field of large granite boulders. Chance pulled out a collapsible bowl and poured one of her canteens into it. Kelly’s burden had been greater, so Chance held the bowl as the horse drank. Zeus got his share when she set the bowl on the ground, allowing her K9 several long laps. She tethered Kelly to a tree to ensure her safety, then pulled off the length of rope she’d brought and threaded it over her head to rest on her shoulder.
“Okay, Zeus, it’s you and me from here. Stay, Kelly.” She patted the horse’s nose and noted the GPS coordinates where she was leaving her mount. She knew Taylor would follow the same path and wind up near here, where she would secure both horses before making her way to the incident scene. Chance was grateful that Taylor would need little instruction. That was one reason why she made such a great chief deputy.
Her eyes checked the placement of each foot, as she made her way across the craggy surface. Zeus effortlessly leapt from one rock to another. The sound of a child’s cry floated to her on the wind, and she picked up her pace until she was looking at a nightmare. A fortyish-year-old man was trying to make his way down the side of a boulder, while a frantic woman lay face down on the top, murmuring down into a crack in the rocks.
“Sir! I’m Sheriff Chance Fitzsimmons. Please stop and make your way back to me. I’m going to throw you a rope. Tie it around your waist, while I anchor you and bring you back up. You won’t be able to make it to her that way and will cause us to have two patients in need of rescue.”
The woman lying on the rocks startled and jerked her head toward Chance. “Please, help us!”
“I will. I need to bring him back to safety. Keep talking to her. Sir, I’m going to need your help back here.” She yelled to the man, as she tossed him the rope. He shook his head no. “Listen to me, I’ve climbed those rocks, and you’ll never make it without a harness and rope. You’ll be more help up here with me.” Chance tied the rope to a nearby tree and watched the man acquiesce. “Tie it high, up under your arms, and I’ll help pull you back up here.”
The man did as Chance instructed, and she helped him back to the top. Tears stained his face, as he collapsed on the ground, completely spent. “Okay, I’m Sheriff Chance Fitzsimmons. What are your names?” She indicated the woman still lying near the large crack between two huge boulders.
The man was pale and near frenzied. “That’s Amy…a…nd…I’m St…Steve.”
Chance handed him a pair of gloves from her pack. “Okay, Steve. What’s your daughter’s name?”
Large tears rolled down ruddy cheeks, and a sob escaped from his body. “Cassie.”
She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to get her out. I need you to stay focused, okay? Cry happy tears when we’ve got her back up here with you.”
He wiped at his face and put on the gloves. “Okay, what do you need me to do?”
“I’m going to put a stronger anchor over at that tree. Take my bag over near your wife, and I’ll be right there. I’ll need to see what’s going on, so I can call in more resources. We’re racing daylight, but you know how long it took you guys to get out here, so try to be patient. It will take time.”
Steve grabbed the backpack and walked over near the crack in the rock. Chance tied a tensionless anchor by looping the rope around the tree several times. This allowed an even distribution of the weight on the rescue rope. With the anchor firmly in place, she walked to the edge. Zeus paced beside her, as she took out her harness and slipped her legs inside the loops. “Amy, I’m going to see if I can get down to her. What’s Cassie been saying about her injuries?” Amy stared down into the crack, not acknowledging that she’d been spoken to. “Amy, I need you to help me. Come on now.” She knelt beside Amy and touched her on the shoulder.
“She…she thinks her leg is broken. It’s tucked underneath her. Cassie’s been crying, but she’s gotten quiet over the last fifteen minutes. I hear whimpers but not much talking.”
The rough granite abraded Chance’s elbows, when she lay down on the stone to peer into the opening. “Cassie? Cassie, can you hear me? My name’s Chance. Can you talk to me, Cassie?”
Chance listened, hearing nothing more than soft crying far below her. To her right, the crack opened up slightly and appeared to give her a better option for dropping over the ledge. Two years ago, she’d rescued a dog out of the crevice a few feet farther to her right. She mentally mapped out her descent and reached for her radio. “SD-1 to SR-5.”
“SR-5, go ahead Chance.”
“I’ve got a thirteen-year-old girl down in that same crevice where we rescued that dog a few years ago. I’ll send coordinates to pinpoint. We’re going to need a tripod, rigging, and the Sked stretcher. Bring a Sager splint in. I haven’t started down in yet, but the family reports the girl’s leg is bent underneath her. Has the equine unit mobilized?” Chance knew they would need a protective stretcher that was flexible enough to maneuver up the walls and out the top. The Sked fit that description. The thick plastic was protective and easy to haul.
“That’s affirmative. The new vet has arrived to help with any injuries to the horses. We have an ambulance in staging, and the medevac helicopter is on standby. They’ll head our way as soon as we give them the go-ahead. Do you have any other orders for us?”
Chance recognized the voice on the other end of the radio transmission. Sarah Riker was a rope rescue technician and had all the training and knowledge needed for this type of high-risk rescue. At the sound of Zeus’s bark, Chance looked up to see Taylor walking out onto the rock near her. “No, that’s all, Sarah. SD-2 just arrived. I’m going to start a rappel down to the girl to see if I can assess and stabilize her condition. SD-2 will be operational command out here and will make contact with you on this channel. SD-1 clear.”
“We read you, SD-1. SD-2 is operational command. We’ll start working our way to you.”
Chance took a quick GPS reading and called in the coordinates to dispatch. “Taylor, if you’ll man the rack, I’ll try and get down in. If I remember last time, getting over the lip was the worst of it. After that, I’ve got to make my way over some narrow outcrops to where she is, so I don’t come down directly on top of her. I can’t see her to know if she’s hit the bottom, so I’m going to have to take it slow.” Chance put her hat on the ground and slipped on her helmet.
“Okay, let me check you over.” Taylor checked all the knots and Chance’s seat-harness straps. “I’m not even going to tell you not to hurt yourself. Last time you did this, you looked like you rolled around on glass, even with a long-sleeved shirt. I’ll have the first aid kit ready.”
Chance tapped Taylor’s helmet and leaned back against the rope. “On rope.” She made her way over to the opening and tried to gently maneuver over the edge. Without the ability to gain elevation, there was no real way to avoid the initial drop and the subsequent smash into the face of the rock. She managed it with only a hit to her knee. She could see Zeus staring at her over the top of the ledge. “Zeus, af.” He backed from the edge and lay down, and she heard Taylor tell him, “Good boy.”
“Slack.” Chance needed Taylor to feed the rope and lower her. The initial rappel she’d planned had been replaced with this lowering maneuver once Taylor arrived to help her
. Chance felt the rope slowly allowing her to descend the wall. The first narrow outcropping was hiding Cassie from her view. Working her way around it wouldn’t be easy, and she expected to lose several layers of skin on her cheek. “Ouch, shit.”
“Chance, you all right?” Taylor’s voice echoed off the walls.
Chance cursed softly. She shut her eyes and pushed away from the outcrop twenty feet down from the top edge. “Yes, I’m fine. Just keep that first aid kit handy. I’m probably going to need it. Slack.” Once she cleared the ledge, she could see the red-headed girl about twenty-five feet below her in a narrow wedge. The space wasn’t uniform across the opening and funneled in the area where Cassie was wedged.
“Hold.” She eyed the patient and could see her chest rising and falling. “She’s breathing. I’ve got about another fifteen feet to reach her. I have to shift my position. Slack.” Chance needed to move over to an area of the rock face that widened out to the right of Cassie. The rope continued to feed out, dropping her down until she stopped to push off and around an obstacle. “Five feet.”
A few more seconds, and Chance’s heart broke at the sight of the young girl’s tear-stained and dirt-smeared face. She detached her harness carabiner from the line, to allow her better movement. The crack narrowed below them to less than six inches, removing the danger in disconnecting. “Off rope!” From this distance below the top, she needed to yell to be heard. Removing the backpack she’d let dangle below her on the descent, she pulled out a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. “Cassie, can you hear me? My name’s Chance, and I’m going to get you out of here. Where are you hurt?”
There was a small whimper coming from the child, as Chance leaned in to see her patient’s injuries. A, B, C, Chance. Airway, breathing, circulation. Get the basics done. She could tell Cassie was breathing, though she wasn’t sure how patent her airway was at the time. A few major abrasions were dirt encrusted and oozing blood. A, B, and C were at least reasonably intact. She cleared some dirt from Cassie’s eyes and was rewarded when they opened slightly. “Hey there. I think we need to figure out a way back to the top. What do you think?”
Cassie barely nodded and began to cry again. “My leg hurts.”
“I’m sure it does. How about anywhere else? Can you tell me if your arms hurt or your back?” Chance unrolled the child-sized blood pressure cuff. “I’m just going to check a few things and see how you’re doing, okay?”
Cassie nodded.
“Try not to move your neck any. Just say yes and no if you can.”
“Okay.”
“Good, now hang on while I listen.” Chance wrapped the cuff around the girl’s arm and took a reading. The values were in normal range, though her pulse rate was up. That was to be expected given what she’d been through. The problem was that the heart often tried to compensate for a major injury, and the symptoms were masked until the heart could no longer maintain normal function. Then the patient would begin to crash. Chance wanted to get Cassie up and out of the crevice before that happened. Her radio crackled to life. “SD-2 to SD-1 in the blind, search and rescue has arrived, and we’re setting up a retrieval tripod. Let us know when you need anything. Sarah will be coming over the side as soon as she can to help with packaging.”
Chance had her hands free enough to be able to answer. In the blind meant that information was being relayed without making a confirmed connection first. “SD-1, message received. Don’t send anyone bigger than Sarah. It’s a tight fit where we are. The two of us can package. We’ll need the Sked.” She watched as her rescue rope pinged off the sides on its ascent back out of the crack in the rock. “I haven’t been able to put a collar on or get access to check on that leg.” She waited for Taylor to repeat the message before she turned back to Cassie. “Okay, try to move as little as possible while I check you over. Let me know if something hurts.”
“I’m scared,” Cassie quavered. The sliver of light coming from the top made everything seem dark above them. The only other illumination came from Chance’s headlamp.
“Would it help if I made it so you could see better?”
“Yeah.”
Chance pulled out several glow sticks from her cargo pocket, bent them to release the chemicals, and shook the tubes. A greenish glow filled the crevice and let Chance and Cassie push the darkness back. “Okay, is that better?”
“Uh huh.”
Chance began a gentle head to toe assessment, making note of any area Cassie said was painful. Her leg did appear to be broken. The lower part of her left leg was bent at an odd angle, hinting at a closed tib-fib fracture. Chance used her body to protect Cassie from the small rocks and fine dirt that fell on them from Sarah’s descent.
Within minutes, her frequent rescue partner was on the other side of the funnel. Chance could see she was standing with one leg up on a rock and the other on a small patch of the bottom. “Off rope!” Sarah unclipped and looked at Chance. “What do you need?”
“Hey, Sarah, this is Cassie. Cassie, Sarah and I are going to put some equipment on you, so we can keep you from injuring anything else on the way out. Okay?”
“Please hurry.”
Sarah met Chance’s eyes. “Cassie, I’m going to help Chance, and we’ll do this as fast as we can.”
Chance pulled a cervical collar out of her trauma bag, and Sarah reached from the other side to help fit it around Cassie’s slim neck. “Sarah, let’s pass my rope under her arms and back. That will let us form a loop they can pull from the top. Once we get her out of the wedge, we can pass her to this side where I have more room.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Sarah moved into position.
Chance relayed the plan to the rescuers on top and said she would advise when they needed to raise the line to free Cassie. Once the loop was secure, Chance looked at Cassie. “Not going to lie, kiddo, your leg is broken. When we lift you to free it, it’s going to hurt. You grab my arm here and squeeze as tight as you need to until we get you lying flat on your back.” Cassie nodded her head, and Chance keyed her radio. “Go ahead and haul, nice and slow.”
Chance tried to hold Cassie’s neck, cradling her head with her forearms. “Haul, slowly!” The rope around Cassie went taut, and Sarah tried to support her leg as it was released from the rock. The girl’s scream incited a cacophony of noise above them.
Sarah pulled out her radio. “Okay, she’s free. We’ve got to get her to Chance. Be ready to lower.” They moved Cassie over to Chance’s side, and Sarah scrambled up and over to them before she keyed her radio. “Lower.”
Chance grabbed the little girl and placed her on the confined space board Sarah had brought down with her. “Let’s splint the tib-fib fracture. Radio up top to get that Sked down here as soon as you can.” Sarah nodded and transmitted the order, as she pulled out a moldable splint to stabilize the fracture.
Chance held protective hands around Cassie’s neck, as she asked her simple questions. “Do you know what day it is?”
“It’s Tuesday.” Cassie’s small voice was broken with sobs.
“And who is the president?”
“Mommy says we have to be respectful, but I don’t have to say that guy’s name, do I?”
Chance and Sarah both laughed. “No, I guess you don’t. How about where you were before you fell down here?”
“We were hiking at Lindy Point. I tried to jump the crack and slipped. That’s how I ended up down here.”
Sarah put her hand on Cassie’s arm. “Cassie, we have to splint this leg. It’s going to hurt again. After I’m done, it will feel better, because it won’t be able to move around okay? Grab onto Chance’s arm.”
Cassie did as instructed. As predicted, she yelled out in pain as the splint was applied. They maneuvered her onto the spine board and stabilized her for transport with head blocks and straps. A Sked hung above them, and Chance watched as Sarah grabbed the tag line attached to the bottom of the device. Sarah maneuvered the equipment down to them. The same tag would help them keep th
e stretcher from getting snagged on the way back up. When everything had been retrieved, Chance watched Sarah put a small helmet and a set of safety glasses on the child. The two deftly picked up the board and slid the Sked under Cassie, before closing the webbing protectively around her. The unique stretcher would allow them to haul Cassie out vertically, making it easier to navigate the rocks.
“I’ll go up with her.” Chance announced, as she fastened the carabiner to her harness. “You belay us from here.”
“I got you. Get her back to the top, her parents are pretty frazzled. So is Zeus for that matter. Taylor has him by the collar.”
“That’s my boy. Okay, Cassie. Let’s get out of here. Sound good to you?” She smiled as Cassie poked her fingers out in the ‘okay’ sign. Small tears were still running out of the corner of her eyes. “You’ve been very brave. It’s almost over. Sarah, get that chopper in the air. By the time we get to the top, they should be able to land that bird as close as possible.”
“Will do, Chance.” Sarah grabbed for her radio and relayed to the crew up top that Chance and Cassie were on rope, as well as the other instructions for patient transport.
A few seconds later, Chance felt the slack go out of both ropes that led out of the crevice. Slowly, she and Cassie made their way up the rock face. They had to stop occasionally to work around those jagged outcroppings, one of which cut a deep laceration into Chance’s arm. Twenty minutes later, the Sked made its way out of the hole and was pulled to the surface. Once they cleared Cassie out, they brought Chance up and lowered the retrieval line for Sarah.
Up top looked like an equipment trade show. Rope, rescue hardware, and slings lay positioned on a tarp ready for use. Years of practice for this type of rescue made Chance very glad to be working with these volunteer professionals.
“Off rope.” Zeus crept close to her and licked her hand. “I’m okay, boy. Thanks for keeping watch for me.”
Taylor stood at her side, holding first aid equipment in her hand. “Never took his eyes off that ledge. How bad?” She pointed to the gash on Chance’s arm.