TACOMA – An injured climber plucked by a rescue helicopter from high on the north slope of Mount Rainier has died, a Pierce County medical examiner’s spokeswoman confirmed Monday night.
“We have been advised he has passed away,” said Mary deTracy, a medical investigator with the medical examiner’s office here.
She declined to identify the climber by name but Peter Cooley, 39, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, had been rescued several hours earlier from the 12,300-foot level of the 14,410-foot mountain.
An Oregon Army National Guard Chinook helicopter that had been standing by in Yakima, about 100 miles away, swept in when the clouds parted briefly and brought the injured climber aboard after he was strapped to a litter.
The climber had been taken to Madigan Army Medical Center near Tacoma, said Dave Kuhns, a Fort Lewis Army base spokesman.
“I cannot discuss his condition pending notification of next of kin,” Kuhns said Monday night. Madigan officials referred all calls to the Fort Lewis spokesman.
Repeated messages left Monday night for a Mount Rainier National Park spokeswomen were not returned.
Cooley fell 30 feet early Saturday on Liberty Ridge – one of the most difficult routes up the mountain. His climbing partner, Scott Richards, 42, also of Cape Elizabeth, was able to reach him, set up a tent and call for help on a cellphone.
Cooley had been reported in stable condition Monday afternoon but was exhibiting signs of a life-threatening head injury and also appeared to have some sort of shoulder and leg injuries, park spokeswoman Patti Wold said earlier. He was in and out of consciousness, incoherent and agitated.
Earlier Monday, two national park rangers had reached the climber and his companion by foot but park officials said then it did not appear rescue was likely until today, because of the steep terrain.
“It looked like this morning the weather was going to stay bad for days and we were prepared to implement this rescue without the use of helicopters,” park spokeswoman Lee Taylor told KOMO-TV shortly after the helicopter rescue.
The two climbing rangers who reached Cooley earlier Monday had him “all set up in a litter and ready to go so when the helicopter got there they could hook up the cables and lift him up into the copter,” Taylor added.
Richards and the rangers were expected to spend the night on the mountain, Taylor said.
A helicopter dropped supplies to the two climbers Sunday night. The supplies included a radio, food, water, warm clothing and sleeping bags.
The two men had been stranded on a 45-degree slope with steep and rocky terrain above and below them, Taylor told The Associated Press earlier.
Cooley and Richards were described as experienced climbers who had scaled Rainier before. In 2001, they tried to climb Liberty Ridge, but bad weather forced them to take an easier route.
Cooley once worked on a search-and-rescue team on Mount McKinley in Alaska and climbed that mountain solo. This was his fourth ascent of Mount Rainier.
Cooley’s aunt, Kristi Witker, of New York City, earlier described him as “an excellent mountain climber” but added that “in my last conversation with him, I said, ‘Please give up mountain climbing. You’re just getting to that point where you’ve been so lucky and nothing’s ever happened, but luck runs out.’ “
Richards had also climbed Mount Blanc and Mount Chamonix in the Alps.
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