Remote mountain rescue in rain, sleet took nearly 24 hours

Published 3:53 pm Monday, November 2, 2020

DARRINGTON — Dozens of volunteers from across the region last week spent nearly 24 hours rescuing an injured woman from a gorge near Rat Trap Pass, east of Darrington.

Snohomish County Volunteer Search and Rescue and the Everett Mountain Rescue Unit were mobilized around 8 p.m. on Thursday to aid the 33-year-old woman, who suffered an immobilizing knee injury.

The woman and her partner lost their way while trail running and were trying to bushwhack their way to a road. They entered steep terrain and the woman tumbled 100 feet down the slope into a boulder field.

Using coordinates given by the partner and with the woman’s flashlight visible from above, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue helicopter SnoHawk 10 located the woman, but tall trees made immediate help impossible.

“We found her pretty quickly, but that is when things started to get more complicated,” said Yana Radenska, a helicopter rescue technician who assisted in the rescue.

Radenska and flight medic Brian Schleicher were lowered by helicopter into a clearing about 850 feet away and hiked the rugged, rocky terrain to the injured patient. Upon arrival, Schleicher began to care for the woman — and did so for the next 20 hours.

Wind, rain and sleet bombarded the group as they waited for more help to arrive.

“We hunkered in for the night,” Schleicher said. “You’re kind of stuck — we are sheltering in place, I was trying to keep the patient warm and comfortable and monitor (her) to make sure she’s not deteriorating.”

Meanwhile, teams from Everett Mountain Rescue and county search-and-rescue volunteers charted a course to extract the woman, preparing a cache of gear and planning to navigate the daunting terrain.

First, rescuers rigged gear to lower the woman on a stretcher about 80 feet to a safe location before raising her some 200 feet out of a stream bed.

Then, in three intervals of about 200 feet each, the woman was lowered to flat terrain, where a new team of volunteer rescuers from Snohomish, King, Skagit and Pierce counties carried her to a location for retrieval by SnoHawk 10.

The woman was flown to Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett for further care.

Ian Davis-Leonard: 425-339-3448; idavisleonard@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @IanDavisLeonard.