Climbing
A 16-year-old mountain climber has been rescued after he fell 500 feet on Mount Hood, OR Monday surviving with just a broken leg, authorities said.
Gurbaz Singh had reached the Pearly Gates, an icy, chute-like section just below the last push to the summit when he lost his grip, reports the Washington Post. He fell down the mountain, coming to a stop on a headwall known as Devil’s Kitchen.
“A lot of things had to happen just right for him to come out of that with just a fractured leg,” Sgt. Marcus Mendoza, a public information officer with the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office, told The Washington Post. “The way it was described to me yesterday is that professional mountaineers know they cannot fall in that area because there’s no way to rescue yourself.”
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said a call came in at about 9 am Monday about a boy who fell while climbing with a group.
Rescue teams reached the teen at about 1 pm at an elevation of about 10,500 feet. The sheriff’s office says rescuers put a splint on his leg and said he was in stable condition. It took rescuers until nearly 5 pm to bring him down to Timberline Lodge where an ambulance was waiting, reports ABC.
At 11,239 feet Hood is the highest mountain in Oregon and one of the most-climbed mountains in the world, according to the sheriff’s office. More than 10,000 people make the technical ascent to Hood’s summit each year.
