Two injured in ATV wreck
D.J. DeJong, Mountain Mail Staff Writer, Jul 26, 2018 A man and a woman, both reported to be in their 70s, sustained injuries Tuesday when their side-by-side utility task vehicle (UTV) went off the road on the east side of Hancock Pass about ¼ mile below the pass. Chaffee County Search and Rescue North received the call about 5 p.m., President Scott Anderson said. Anderson said Search and Rescue workers at the scene reported the couple had pulled over to the edge of the narrow road to let another vehicle pass and got too close to the edge. One wheel dropped off the road and the UTV rolled over. A rescue staging area was set up at the Hancock town site on CR 295, about 5 miles up from St. Elmo, where Chaffee County Emergency Medical Services waited with an ambulance. Anderson said the victims were extracted from the scene by UTV and transferred to the ambulance for transport to Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center. They were transported by ambulance because Flight for Life and REACH aircraft were unable to operate due to local weather conditions, he...SAR rescues lost hiker off Mount Princeton in 17-hour mission
Posted: Wednesday, June 13, 2018 12:37 pm | Updated: 3:11 pm, Thu Jun 14, 2018. By Max R. Smith, Chaffee County Times, Times reporter | 0 comments Chaffee County Search and Rescue-North undertook what it called in a Facebook post its “biggest mission of 2018” last weekend, a 17-hour overnight rescue of a hiker lost on Mount Princeton. Ten CCSAR-N volunteers responded to the call at 10:47 p.m., Saturday to find Dan Dunham of Cape Coral, Fla., who was located via his cell phone on the south face of the mountain at about 12,800 feet above sea level. Dunham, 68, was visiting Colorado as part of an ambitious tour of the West packed with hikes intended to get himself back into shape. In the previous weeks, he had climbed mountains in Mount Zion National Park, Colorado National Monument, the Maroon Bells and a bit of the Continental Divide trail along Independence Pass. Only 4 or 5 days before his Princeton hike, he bagged Mount Elbert. “I felt pretty good about it. I was getting to where I wanted to be,” he said. “This was what I wanted to do: hike fairly easy hikes but spend a lot of time outdoors and at elevation.” But summiting Mount Princeton in particular meant for Durham the completion of a trip over 20 years old, when a group of friends hiked several Colorado fourteeners in short order. Exhausted from summitting Mount of the Holy Cross in the days prior, the only mountain Dunham sat out during that trip while the others climbed was Mount Princeton. “I just waited in the van and they did Mount Princeton,” he said....Private boater dies after capsizing raft
Posted: Monday, June 4, 2018 6:37 pm | Updated: 7:47 pm, Mon Jun 4, 2018. Chaffee County Times The Chaffee County Communications Center received a call June 4 about 3:11 p.m, about a raft that capsized in the vicinity of the Pine Creek Rapids approximately 13 miles north of Buena Vista. Members of the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office, Chaffee Fire, Chaffee County EMS, Chaffee County Search and Rescue North and State Parks and Wildlife all responded to the scene and began search efforts. According to a witness the victim and his wife put in the Arkansas River at the Clear Creek confluence. A short distance downriver the raft they were riding on capsized and both passengers of the private raft entered the river. The wife of the victim was able to swim to safety however the victim continued downriver. Search efforts began immediately and after a large scale search began the victim was located approximately 4 hours after he entered the river. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene and the Chaffee County Coroner responded and took possession of the victim. The victim was identified as Christian Sheetz, age 46, from Summit...Search and Rescue receives accreditation
Max R. Smith, Chaffee County Times reporter Chaffee County Search and Rescue North completed the test for accreditation by the Mountain Rescue Association’s Rocky Mountain Chapter on Jan. 28 by performing a staged avalanche rescue. “We’re now going to have a governing body watching us, making sure we’re keeping up with national standards,” said SAR-North’s James Orlet. A member of Chaffee County SAR for 12 years, Orlet was the team’s training director from 2016 to 2017. To pass the test, an SAR crew needs the unanimous approval of a panel of other MRA members who observe the team conduct rescues in staged scenarios testing high angle technical rescue, Scree field evacuation, winter rescue and avalanche operations. Orlet said the team put in 700 hours of training to get the accreditation. In training, Orlet said that the team grew the most in their skills with high-angle rescues, which often involve using technical climbing on class five terrain to reach an injured party. “It gave a whole bunch of people skills they didn’t have before,” Orlet said. SAR-North completed all but the Avalanche test over a weekend of December 15-17, according to team training director Heath Wharton. “They wanted to see the avalanche portion again,” Wharton said. “They wanted to observe that our command staff is able to synthesize all of the information.” Wharton, a member of SAR-North since 2015, took the position of training director in January. “The greatest benefit that came out of this was seeing the team rise to the occasion,” he said. “Prior to this, we had one or two guys who were really strong at setting...Nuts in pot edible lead to shock, SAR callout on Midland Hill
By Times and Mail staff, Jan 19, 2018 Chaffee County Search and Rescue-North assisted emergency medical services to help a man suffering from anaphylactic shock while hiking in the Midland Hill area Thursday afternoon. The 37-year-old man had an allergic reaction to nuts in a marijuana edible he had eaten, according to Chaffee County Sheriff John Spezze “EMS was able to access him just fine,” said CCSAR-N spokeswoman Nancy Anderson. SAR was called to assist with evacuation off Midland Hill just east of the Arkansas river east of Buena Vista. “He was doing fine,” Anderson said. “He was transported down from the location, he was talking. Anderson said it was a “It was a simple evacuation, easy conditions.” Because the case was a medical one rather than criminal, the man’s name was not released, Spezze...Donate to CCSARN
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