For your convenience, we have installed the link below to make donations to this website easier. Now you can utilize your PayPal account or your credit card.

--------------

Our Primary Pages

Home
Sports
People
Features
Business
Government
Forum
Schools
PSA
Calendar
History
Obituaries
Wine & Tourism
Classifieds
Agriculture

---------------

Emergency personnel, including Watkins Glen Fire Chief Dominick Smith, center, discuss plans for the rescue.

Stuck in the Gorge

Man, trapped on a trail and suffering hypothermia, rescued after 3 hours

WATKINS GLEN, March 12 -- Call it a lesson -- one that suggests that those signs alerting hikers that the Watkins Glen State Park Gorge is closed for the season are there for a reason.

It was a lesson learned by, or at least applied to, a young man who ventured Tuesday afternoon onto the gorge trail and found himself stuck on it about 150 yards above Rainbow Falls, trapped by ice in front of him and behind -- stuck on a portion of the trail that is three feet wide, in the shadows of the gorge, out of the range of sunlight that warmed the land above and beyond.

The man, in his early 20s and described as "a local" by various officials on the scene -- but as yet unidentified officially by the investigating NewYork State Park Police -- was rescued three hours after his ordeal began, rescued by emergency personnel who rappelled down a 180-foot wall of ice-covered rock to the trail, loaded him into a stokes basket, secured him with tight netting, and winched him the 180 feet to safety.

The Watkins Glen Fire Department was in charge of the operation with assistance from the Burdett, Beaver Dams, Montour Falls and Odessa fire departments. They all gathered at the top of the gorge, in the parking area of the upper entrance, about a quarter-mile hike to a point on the north rim looking down over the cliff edge to the man.

He had become stuck, Watkins Glen Fire Chief Dominick Smith said, and had used his cell phone to call for help, dialing 911. "He was lucky his phone worked; that he got a signal in there," said the chief, noting that the gorge is known for exactly the opposite.

As it was, the man suffered hypothermia, the gorge being much cooler than the surrounding region, cooled by shadows and air currents and by the passing, icy water that formed the gorge and still cuts through it on its way downhill to Watkins Glen.

"If that call doesn't work," said one rescuer on site, "he would have been in real trouble. Imagine how it would have been during the (next's day's expected) storm?" National Weather Service prognosticators were expecting 8 to 14 inches of snow, along with some howling and icy winds, on Wednesday and Thursday.

For that matter, if the man had been down there after dark -- which was closing in fast, with sinking temperatures, about the time he was finally extricated -- he might not have made it to the storm. As soon as he was lifted out of the gorge and driven by a Watkins Glen Fire Rescue ATV to the park's parking area, he was transferred to a Schuyler Ambulance and given intravenous fluids to combat his hypothermia and dehydration.

Park police arrived just as the ambulance departed, and didn't stay long -- opting to follow the ambulance to the hospital to talk to the man and charge him with what one official said would be "two or three" counts relating to trespass and possibly disorderly conduct. The actual charges levied were not available later from Park Police, all questions being redirected to a public information officer in Albany who was unavailable for comment..

The five fire departments on hand -- each with several firefighters -- were present "because we needed to be prepared," said Watkins Chief Smith. For instance, some brought generators and lights that would have been essential to the rescue operation if it lasted beyond nightfall. The Odessa department also brought some ice spikes from its library of ice-rescue equipment, and both the Odessa and Montour departments had all-terrain vehicles if needed. And the added manpower was helpful in carrying equipment to the rescue site.

Schuyler County Emergency Management coordinator Bill Kennedy (right) was on hand, "but only to see if they needed anything from me," he said. They didn't, but he stayed to the end, just in case.

Kennedy said this was the earliest point in any year in his memory for a gorge incident. Usually they occur after the tourist season opens, and "involve medical conditions" and an occasional fall -- say from amateur photographers who lean too far over a ledge.

Park police were situated on the other side of the gorge -- along the south rim -- during the rescue and within sight of it. One police official with them said the rescue operation was visible, though barely, through some trees. He said he saw three rescuers rappel down the ice face to the hiker, where he was secured in the basket and lifted free.

Said one official, describing the rescue as it was occurring: "He's being so tightly wrapped into that basket that he won't be able to move. And he'll probably be screaming on his way up. It's not pleasant, and has to be frightening."

The man was in no mood for socializing when he reached the ambulance, covering his head with a blanket given him by rescuers as he exited the ATV and entered the emergency vehicle through a side door.

The mission finally accomplished, Chief Smith took a break. "How you doing?" he asked a reporter, and didn't wait for an answer before adding: "Probably better than me."

He looked down a slope to one of his department's trucks parked on the service road used to reach the rescue site. "I'll tell you, though, this was a good, solid, coordinated effort. We planned for the worst, with the lights and other equipment, but we got him before dark. The guys did a great job. It shows that training pays off. That was a sheer ice wall all the way up and down. It wasn't easy."

Still a mystery to seemingly everyone was how the hiker managed to get past trail ice that he found impossible to renegotiate. And there were questions as to why he would venture out in such conditions alone or, for that matter, in the face of signs clearly posted that forbid such actitivity on the trails. Speculation was that he entered the gorge from an adjoining cemetery.

"The trail rims are open," said one official. "But not the trails themselves. And there's a reason for that. We don't want anybody getting hurt. And we don't want rescuers gettng hurt."

Unsaid, but clearly in the air, was this: The outcome could have been a lot worse; could have been tragic.

Photos in text:

From top: Emergency workers plan the rescue operation; a stokes basket, the kind used in the rescue; Odessa firefighter Tom Carson dons his uniform after his department arrived; Schuyler County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Kennedy was on hand; the rescued man, seated in the center and wrapped in a white blanket, is taken to the ambulance.

A map of the Watkins Glen State Park gorge trails. The Rainbow Falls site is left of center.