by Bob Madgic
He knew he shouldn’t if there were any possibility of spinal or neck injuries. On the other hand, the cave was cramped, with insufficient space for both of them to lie comfortably on their backs and be treated. Hoog concluded that the chance of spinal injury was remote; he would remove both victims from the cave.
First he pushed the rock off Rice’s leg. Then he and Esteban shifted the four backpacks and other odds and ends out of the way. The pair lifted Weiner, one supporting his upper body by holding him under his armpits, the other grasping his legs. With much careful and strenuous maneuvering, they managed to get him out and up onto the open granite, and gently laid him down. Hoog took off his own jacket and covered Weiner with it.
In similar fashion, Hoog and Esteban retrieved Rice and placed him near Weiner. Both men lay there, groaning and twisting in anguish. To Hoog, it looked like either or both could slip into shock, a potentially fatal development.
Shock is a downward spiral of bodily functions triggered by the inability of the circulatory system to send an adequate supply of blood to tissues. Infections, burns, heart attack, spinal cord damage, and rapid blood loss from an injury or wound can cause it. With impaired blood flow, valuable resources are shunted toward the more vital brain and internal organs. Surface blood vessels constrict, leaving the skin pale and clammy. Heart rate increases, breathing becomes more rapid, and digestion slows and ultimately halts. Body temperature is erratic, with hypothermia a threat. If blood pressure drops, mental functioning deteriorates. First the victim experiences a sense of impending doom, then apathy and weakness, then disorientation and incoherence. The final result is coma. If the regression in bodily functions isn’t diagnosed, halted, and reversed early, the patient is likely to die. Even in hospitals, the mortality rate for acute shock is 50 percent.
Hoog, who knew that a potential shock victim must be kept warm, returned to the cave to gather warm garments from the men’s backpacks. He reexamined Brian Jordan and, despite his extreme queasiness, searched his body for a pulse. He couldn’t feel one anywhere. The boy was indeed dead, becoming one of the 10 percent of lightning victims who perish.
WHILE HOOG was doing what he could for the victims, Rick Pedron-celli, having decided to follow him to the top after all, was making his way up. Once there, he spotted Hoog and others off in the distance, near the edge. When he got closer, he saw his friend attending to one of two individuals lying prone. A third, Esteban, was sitting and looked dazed.
When Pedroncelli approached, Esteban leaped up and said: We need to get help!
Initially, Pedroncelli was quite reluctant to get involved, for reasons that had to do with another death—that of his mother. She had died unexpectedly when he was only twelve years old. The event left him with deep-seated feelings of insecurity and made him less willing to take chances. Still, it was evident something terrible had happened, that Hoog needed help.
After Pedroncelli got a quick update on the situation, he asked if he could do anything. Hoog told him to retrieve the men’s sleeping bags and air mattresses from inside the cave. Pedroncelli slipped down through the opening and crawled to the backpacks near the body of Brian Jordan. Shaking uncontrollably, he hastily snatched a couple of bags and mattresses, and retreated outside as fast as he could. He and Hoog positioned Rice and Weiner on the mattresses, and covered them with the bags.
By this time, both Weiner and Rice were fully delirious, squirming and moaning under the sleeping bags, obviously in acute pain. Esteban appeared to be stable but extremely distressed and understandably panicked about his companions. Pedroncelli didn’t see any way for these two men to get the medical assistance they clearly needed. Here they were on top of a mountain with nightfall approaching, far away from the Valley and possible assistance. He felt powerless.
Hoog said: We have to get Linda up here.
LINDA CROZIER, eager to finally see the view from the top that her good friend Hoog had long touted, had already decided to climb to the summit to join him and Pedroncelli. Wearing only running shorts, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt tied around her waist, she struck out for the Dome, the time now being around 7:30 p.m.
At the base of the cables, alone, she gazed up the rock incline wrapped in shadows and total silence. The scene, in her words, was “very moody.”
She began the climb feeling more than a little intimidated by the steep, black, wet slope and the absence of other hikers to lend psychological support. Pulling on the cables with sufficient arm strength to keep moving upward taxed her to the limit. She stopped halfway to take a photo looking up the cables, and as she pointed her camera, Pedroncelli suddenly appeared in the viewfinder where the cables ended. He was beckoning her with his arms and calling out. Sensing something was wrong, Crozier put away the camera and yanked even harder on the cables, making her legs respond in kind.
As she drew nearer, Pedroncelli shouted: Hurry! Lightning killed two guys and three others are badly hurt!
On top, heading over to Hoog and the others, Crozier rehearsed in her mind the basics of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Then she saw Weiner and Rice lying on the stone surface. Hoog told her about the dead boy in the cave and about the hiker who had vanished over the cliff. The irony of it all didn’t escape Crozier: These were the very men whose behavior she had found so distasteful back at Nevada Fall. Her brother Dan had conveyed to their two leaders, Rice and Esteban, the older hiker’s warning about not scaling the summit with a storm brewing. But whatever negative feelings she may have had regarding this crew evaporated amid the tragedy that now engulfed them.
Her first reaction—why, she doesn’t know—was to peer down over the edge. There, in the rocky jumble far below, was something white—probably Friths body. She was also thinking about what Hoog had said about the dead boy in the cave. Up to this time she had never seen a dead person before, and she felt squeamish about confronting that possibility now. With this chilling consideration kicking around in her head, she accepted Hoog’s conclusion, cleared her head of distractions, and returned to where the injured lay. Hoog gave her a quick rundown of the treatment he had provided so far. Crozier, who had more experience than Hoog in emergency medical care, took charge at that point.
A teacher in Crozier’s EMT training had emphasized the importance of problem-solving skills in addition to knowledge of standard medical applications. Absent medical equipment in an outdoor emergency, you must be able to improvise and use all available resources. Although the curriculum included electrical injuries, the instructor had touched only briefly on those caused by lightning.
Without any medical gear or medicine on Half Dome, Crozier’s medical training would be supremely tested. Yet it was her more intangible qualifications—knowing how to deal coolly with various athletic injuries as a trainer, for example, and how to take decisive action in life-threatening situations as a whitewater guide—that would be brought to the forefront this night.
She moved right away to the third phase of emergency care— assessment—which entailed checking the life-essential functions, or ABCs: airway breathing, and circulation. In EMT terminology, this is a primary survey. If either victim had an ABC problem, such as a blocked airway, it would have to be dealt with immediately.
A quick inspection showed that neither man had any major breathing obstructions or bleeding. Given Rice’s unmoving and quiet state, he appeared to be the most critically injured at this juncture, so Crozier examined him first. She noted extensive burn lesions, cauterized by the lightning’s searing heat, and knew that such traumatic wounds could produce shock. She felt for pulses at his wrists and elbows but found none, which signaled low blood pressure and the probable onset of shock. Reaching up into his shorts, she checked the femoral artery in his groin and was relieved to feel a pulse. So, at least for now, Rice had some circulation to vital organs. Crozier would tap this particular pulse in follow-up checks as a baseline reference, and use it to assess the rate, rhythm, and strength of his overall cardiac system. If the pulse diminished, it would mean Ric
e was slipping deeper into shock.
Crozier detected a pulse on Weiner’s wrist, but it was weak. Judging from his intense writhing, his pain seemed all-encompassing. His murmurings suggested that he believed he was going to die.
Esteban suffered only a few dime-sized blisters on his left elbow, hip, and knee where the lightning had exited. By this time, he had regained all feeling in his entire body and was fully coherent.
Two new hikers appeared on the summit. They said they, too, were EMTs and offered to assist. One, Renee Miller, was in her early twenties; the other was a man who only gave his first name, Brutus. They were camped below the summit and, like the others, had climbed up to enjoy the sunset. Crozier, thankful for their presence, enlisted Miller’s help in assessing the victims. She asked Hoog and Brutus to examine Brian Jordan yet again.
Inside the cave, the two men found that Jordan’s face had turned a cyanotic blue, the result of insufficient blood oxygen. They also noted a wound in his upper right shoulder where the lightning most likely had entered. On the left side of his chest, just above the nipple, were signs of electrical burns—probably the exit wounds. The electrical charge appeared to have flashed across and possibly through Jordan’s chest near his heart, shocking it and causing ventricular fibrillation, a chaotic twitching of cardiac muscle that completely disrupts the pumping of blood. Only immediate CPR and an electrical jump start from a defibrillator (a device that restores normal heartbeat), followed as soon as possible by emergency medical treatment, might have saved him.
Crozier wanted a head-to-toe examination of both Weiner and Rice to ensure there were no injuries to the neck, spine, or back, no broken bones, and no other wounds or injuries requiring prompt attention. This is a secondary survey, in EMT parlance. While she examined Rice, Renee Miller did the same for Weiner. The two women worked in tandem and compared findings, each advising the other what to look for as they scanned the men’s bodies.
Now more awake, Rice complained of severe pain in his legs and feet. Crozier spotted a wound in his left ankle—the lightning probably exited there—that resembled a bullet hole. His legs looked as though a potato peeler had scraped sections of skin off of them and left white blotches of burned flesh. He also had burn wounds on his arms; he could barely move the left one.
Miller discovered that Weiner’s wounds were almost identical.
As Rice’s and Weiner’s wounds made clear, lightning not only had scorched the outside of their bodies, vaporizing any residual moisture from the rain and thereby causing severe burns, but also seemingly had penetrated their backs—hence, the gaping, leathery lesions there—and blasted out through the feet.
This had triggered a cascade of calamitous and potentially fatal physiological events. The burns caused swelling in the legs, which in turn shut off circulation to lower extremities, just as a tourniquet would. That explained the pair’s whitish blue feet. Though Rice and Weiner still had some feeling in the legs, the swelling, if untreated, threatened to starve tissue of the oxygenated blood it needs to stay alive. Because dying muscle tissue releases toxins that can cause kidney failure or damage other bodily systems, the legs would have to be amputated if it reached that point.
On an impulse, Hoog abruptly left to see if any more hikers were coming up the cables who could turn tail and summon more help. Meanwhile, Pedroncelli thought of another strategy—sending an SOS by Morse code with his flashlight to campers in the Valley* He went to the edge, in line of sight of the campgrounds far below, and began flashing SOS, which he remembered from war movies. The evening sky was still light, however, and Pedroncelli doubted that anyone down there could see the flashes. So, after several attempts, he stopped.
At this point, other than the small contingent on top of Half Dome—those few who were giving and receiving aid—no other people in all of Yosemite had any inkling of the calamity.
ROCK CLIMBERS KEN BOKELUND and Rob Foster made it to the Valley floor by 7:30 p.m., physically and emotionally spent but grateful they had survived their brush with lightning uninjured. Rainwater immersed the parking lot at Camp Curry. Bokelund gazed up at Half Dome as the last rays of sun bathed the famous rock face they had just scaled. A shimmering golden glow radiated from it, framed by turbulent, multihued clouds. It was the most striking image Bokelund had ever seen. He snapped a photo.
The climbing duo tossed their gear into the car and headed out, not once thinking of the two hikers they had warned about going up there and unaware of the life-and-death drama that was playing out on the summit at that very instant.
BRIAN CAGE�S PARTY of six remained under the giant Jeffrey pine at the base of Half Dome, waiting for the storm to pass. After the rain stopped and as the clouds began to disperse, early-evening sunlight filtered through. Splashes of blue punctuated the western sky, and to the north, just beyond Half Dome, a rainbow arced across the heavens. The six agreed there was still time to reach the summit. They removed their ponchos, hoisted their backpacks, and headed up the trail toward Sub Dome.
As they plodded along, Steve White remarked how good he felt after the extended rest. Zip Cotter, who was taking long, slow strides, responded in his usual laconic manner that all he wanted was to get to the top. They had already hiked nine miles from Glacier Point that day lugging forty-pound backpacks. Though dog-tired, the hikers were intent on finishing the climb; they could rest on Half Dome.
They reached the base of the cables at 7:50 P.M., dropped their backpacks, and rummaged through them for gloves to better grip the cables. Given the fading light and slick surfaces, the climb was going to be tricky this evening.
Just as they were about to start up, a man with long blond hair—Mike Hoog—appeared at the upper cables and shouted down to them: Go get help! Two guys got hit by lightning!
Then he disappeared, before they could get more information. They weren’t sure if he was serious, and if he was, what kind of help did he want? Not knowing what to make of all this, the hikers decided to scurry up there and find out.
Clu Cotter led the way up, closely followed by Steve White. The other four—Cage, Zip Cotter, Paul Kolbenschlag, and Monroe Bridges—lagged behind. Clu Cotter, a Half Dome first-timer, was taken aback by the steepness of the grade and the far distance between stepping boards. Fearful of heights as well, he didn’t look down. When he and White reached the top, they saw people bent over individuals in sleeping bags at the point overlooking Yosemite Valley.
White’s first thought was: God, it really happened!
He and Clu Cotter waited for their four companions to catch up. As all six men reached the scene, Weiner and Rice were howling and squirming in pain.
Cage: “I specifically remember one calling to the other by name and screaming, ‘My God, my God, we’re going to die, we’re going to die!’ And frankly, my buddies and I were thinking that one or both might very well die.”
The new arrivals shed their backpacks and offered to help. Those loaded packs would prove to be a lifesaver, because they were stuffed with valuable supplies—sleeping bags, food, stoves, clothing, and, especially important, water. Linda Crozier immediately put Brian Cage’s party to work, requesting that they move Weiner and Rice to a more level spot. With three on a side, the six men gently lifted each victim where he lay on a mattress, carried him a short distance, and set him down. When they finished, Weiner and Rice were at right angles to each other, their heads about six feet apart.
Crozier then asked Cage and White to try to find a pulse anywhere on the victims’ feet. Cage pulled the boots off Rice and was astonished to discover that the bottoms of his socks on both feet were missing, as though they had vaporized inside the boots. The bottoms of his feet seemed okay—cold and pink-white, not burned in anyway—though the edges of the remaining sock material were charred. Cage and White couldn’t locate a pulse in either Weiner’s or Rice’s feet. Cage leafed through a pamphlet from his first-aid kit for information on how to treat lightning injuries and found nothing there on the subject.
Kolbenschlag and Zip Cotter walked a short distance away to another part of the Dome, unnerved by the obvious pain and anguish of the two injured men. Kolbenschlag was so physically beat, he could do little more than collapse on the granite. He was in poor shape for the hike and had barely made it to the summit.
As the dampness and frigid stone stole warmth from their already compromised bodies, Weiner and Rice both complained of feeling chilled. Crozier didn’t observe any deterioration in their vital signs, but she was still very aware of the threat of severe shock and the extreme danger it would pose. Getting and keeping them warm was crucial. At her request, Clu Cotter, White, Bridges, and Cage pulled sleeping bags from their backpacks. Bridges went into the cave to retrieve more bags. When he shone his flashlight in the dark enclosure, the sight of Brian Jordan’s body made him recoil.
Bridges emerged with two more sleeping bags, deeply traumatized by the image of the boy whose brief life had been abruptly extinguished. Crozier placed one bag under and two more on top of Weiner and Rice; each was now enveloped by four bags.
It was 8:30 P.M. The victims’ weak and rapid pulses indicated to Crozier that their blood pressure was dangerously low. In her assessment, one or both might perish if they spent the entire night there. She and the others could continue to treat for shock, maintain the ABCs, periodically monitor the pair’s condition, and try to make them comfortable, but both needed advanced medical treatment.
One option crossed her mind: Could a team of hikers somehow transport Weiner and Rice down to the Valley floor? Not likely. Even if they had enough agility and strength to do so, how could this maneuver take place without causing further injury?
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking. In little more than thirty minutes, darkness would fall.
Crozier fought back against the panic rising within her. Weiner’s and Rice’s fates were squarely in her hands—she and she alone had to make the right decisions. She desperately wanted someone to lift this burden from her shoulders, to have the park rangers take over.