A rock climber was rescued after a Wyoming family driving through a tunnel heard the climber's son yelling for help.
Leonard Wright of Salt Lake City was treated for cuts, bruises and a separated shoulder at Dixie Regional Medical Center after he fell 45 feet Friday while trying to help his 22-year-old son, whose rappelling rope had become tangled.The son, Mike Wright of Salt Lake City, was not injured after dangling upside down from a rope. It was his cries for help that a Wyoming man heard.
Mark Spiers and his family from Mountain View, Wyo., were driving through the tunnel that connects Zion National Park to Mt. Carmel Junction when Spiers heard a man yelling "Help!" through his closed car windows.
The Spierses stopped their car, put on their flashing lights and peered through a small window to the outside of the tunnel.
They saw a rope hanging down from above, and even higher, a man hanging upside down from the rope.
Eight feet below the window, Leonard Wright was lying injured on the slope.
Spiers drove off to get park rangers while his wife, trained as a Wyoming emergency medical technician, climbed to where the 51-year-old Wright was lying. Two teens held the ropes securing Spiers' wife. She checked Wright's breathing, spoke with him and thought he was in stable condition.
A ranger arrived after a few minutes and threw a sleeping bag and coat through the window to cover the elder Wright.
Meanwhile, Mike Wright got his rope unknotted and came down on his own. Five rangers helped rescue Leonard Wright.
He was treated at Dixie Regional Medical Center but not hospitalized. Mike Wright also was not hospitalized.
The Wrights told their rescuers that while they were rappelling near the tunnel, Mike Wright's gear became tangled in a knot, stopping his descent. His father tried to rescue him by rappelling to his son. Instead he fell more than 45 feet, knocking his son as he fell and flipping him upside down.