Casey Brennan’s hike to Ice Lakes was meant to be a peaceful walk through the mountains. But on his way down from the iconic snowmelt-fed lakes west of Silverton, it turned into a life-or-death rescue.
Brennan, his girlfriend Katie Fella and her brother Josh Fella planned to camp near the Ice Lakes Trailhead, wake at dawn, reach the lakes by lunchtime and be back at their car before the afternoon thunderstorms. But as the trio descended, they noticed other hikers ahead who looked distressed.
“We were about 20 to 30 yards up the trail when we heard some commotion,” Brennan said.
The hikers were standing above a section where the trail drops off a cliff – the only truly exposed spot along the route.
Brennan, an EMT who works at an Albuquerque hospital, sprang into action. He told the other hikers to start coordinating with search and rescue, dropped his backpack on the side of the trail and started down the steep hillside to find the fallen hiker.
“I really thought that I’d be going down there and seeing a dead body,” he said. “I found a way to traverse down ‒ it was very steep, pretty loose hillside ‒ and I got down and saw that he was still alive.”
The man had fallen at least 80 feet and landed in a creek, Brennan said. When Brennan found him, he was unconscious with a gash from his eye to the top of his head, lying in the frigid 45-degree water. Brennan evaluated his neck, chest and limbs to make sure moving him wouldn’t cause more harm, then gently pulled him out of the water.
“I got him out of the water to a dry spot and took his shirt off, which I used to wrap his head and control the bleeding,” he said. “Then I did a little bit more in-depth assessment to see what we were kind of up against.”
Luckily, Brennan said, there were no life-threatening injuries to the man’s abdomen or spine, but he was in rough shape and needed to be evacuated. By then, Josh Fella had joined him, and the two began communicating with people up on the trail, one of whom was able to use the satellite SOS feature on their phone to contact search and rescue.
The only problem was that his condition was too severe and the terrain too technical to move him without a rope team and a helicopter, according to a news release from the San Juan County Office of Emergency Management. To make matters worse, the thunderstorms he hoped to avoid arrived, bringing rain and lighting, Brennan said.
“It started coming down pretty good,” he said. “Being above tree line with lightning and thunder is super spooky. I was just trying to keep him as dry and warm as I could. So it was tough, but at that point, we just had to stay put.”
To keep him warm, Brennan gave the man his own shirt and raincoat, then settled in to wait for help. Another hiker, an off-duty search and rescue volunteer who requested not to be identified, came to his aid. They wrapped him in her thermal blanket and waited for the Silverton team to arrive. But by that point, Brennan was completely soaked and at risk for hypothermia himself.
“My boots filled with water getting him out of the creek, and my pants are soaked from the rain,” he said. “He had my shirt, my jacket, so at that point (Josh Fella) and myself said there’s not much more help that we can offer.”
With the man stabilized and in good hands, the pair took off down the trail back to safety. They ran into the search and rescue team headed up the trail, who were able to evacuate the hiker and get him to Mercy Hospital.
If Brennan had not come to the man’s aid when he did, the situation could have been far worse. Brennan said he was nervous waiting for search and rescue to arrive.
“It was a little nerve-wracking,” he said. “But with my girlfriend’s brother being able to communicate with people up on the trail, that added a little bit of calmness. But there was only so much that I could do, so it was essentially just a waiting game.”
Brennan said even as a medical professional who spends a lot of time outdoors, he was not fully prepared for this kind of situation. That’s part of the risk of recreating in the backcountry, he said. Even on a trail as popular as Ice Lakes, Brennan urged people to be aware of the risks and stay as safe as possible.
“I feel like this is like a once-in-a-lifetime kind of situation,” he said. “But I think the biggest thing is having communication and at least having people there with you.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
