SEATTLE — Officials released a video Monday of a Washington state teen's dramatic, middle-of-the-night rescue just above a 270-foot waterfall.
The video, shot by a volunteer rescuer, shows the 13-year-old Burien boy huddled on a narrow, sloping rock shelf with his back to the water just above Wallace Falls, a popular hiking attraction northeast of Seattle. One roped-up rescuer cautiously makes his way to the boy using an aluminum ladder as a foothold, and then guides him up a rock wall to safety.
The boy, whose name was not immediately released, had been wading in the Wallace River when he lost his footing late Saturday afternoon. The whitewater swept him over one 10-foot waterfall, but he pulled himself onto a narrow rock shelf just before the main falls. He stayed there, cold and wet, for the next eight and a half hours until rescuers were able to reach him.
The boy and his rescuers were scheduled to speak at a news conference Monday afternoon.
"He was on that one rock for all those hours," Snohomish County Sheriff's Lt. Suzy Johnson said Sunday afternoon. "He's a pretty lucky kid."
Rescuers first tried to reach him by helicopter, but the rock overhanging the shelf prevented them from dropping straight down. Instead, a helicopter crew dropped two rescuers 200 yards below him.
The rescuers climbed above the rock overhang, and then worked as a team — one rappelling down, the other belaying. Their goal was just to reach him and place him in a harness that would keep him safe until others arrived, said Deputy Bill Quistorf, chief pilot for the sheriff's air support unit.
As one rappelled down, he tried to swing under the overhang. His rope, rubbing against the rock, snapped, and he plunged into the whitewater. Only his secondary rope saved him from going over the big falls, and he made it to shore with minor injuries.
Other rescuers hiked up the trail, and arrived to find the boy standing on the rock, wet and hypothermic. They threw him dry clothes and food and set up a rigging that would allow them to rescue him, including a 24-foot aluminum ladder placed horizontally across the river and secured with several ropes.
The video shows the ladder secured to the shore on one end and suspended in the water under the rock ledge by two ropes on the other end. The rescuer who reached the boy uses it as a foothold, helps him rope up and then helps him climb up the rock wall.
The 10 rescuers camped with him overnight, and a sheriff's office helicopter flew them down off the mountain at 6 a.m. There was no place for the helicopter to land to pick them up, so the boy and the rescuers rode on a platform hanging from a cable 80 feet below the helicopter.
The video is available at http://vimeo.com/42556237 .
Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle