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The Gazette, Jerilee Bennett
Teen rescued off Pikes Peak
TOURISTS WATCHED: 17-year-old drove his car off summit into ‘Bottomless Pit’
June 25, 2008 - 2:03PM
BY CARLYN RAY MITCHELL
THE GAZETTE
A 17-year-old whose girlfriend had reportedly just broken up with him drove his car off of the Pikes Peak summit Wednesday afternoon in front of a crowd of tourists, witnesses and police said.
It took rescuers more than eight hours and one failed helicopter rescue attempt to pull the teen 900 feet back to the top, where he was taken via Chinook helicopter to Memorial Hospital.
Just after 1 p.m., the teen, who has not been identified, drove his car off the northwest edge of the summit at about 35 mph, said Steve Sperry with El Paso County Search and Rescue.
The boy was ejected from his car, which landed 1,000 feet below the summit in an area known as the "Bottomless Pit."
Dozens of hikers, tourists on the cog railway and those who had also driven to the summit witnessed the incident and scrambled across the parking lot to see what became of the driver, said Lt. Rick Johnson of the Pikes Peak rangers.
"That's how we knew it," said Johnson. "We didn't see it."
The full extent of his injuries was unknown Wednesday night, but Johnson said the teen had cuts and pain throughout his body.
"I'm sure he got knocked around a bit," Johnson said.
Dave Doren, a search and rescue team member who hiked down and helped pull the teen up, said the teen was conscious and breathing the entire time he was on the side of the mountain.
At the scene, a Colorado Springs police officer was overheard telling tourists, who arrived by the trainload throughout the afternoon, that the 17-year-old had just broken up with his girlfriend.
The Pikes Peak Highway was closed to drivers.
First on the scene was Bill Duck, with the Pikes Peak Highway rangers, who was inside the Summit House giving a presentation to tourists at the time of the accident.
Not far behind him were South Dakota members of the U.S. Forest Service who just happened to have driven to the summit Wednesday afternoon.
Using a fire hose from their truck, they were the first rescuers to reach the teen.
When El Paso County Search and Rescue arrived, they sent a medic down to stabilize the teen and laid rope to begin the rescue effort.
"They are just making him as comfortable as possible," Sperry said Wednesday afternoon.
By 3:30 p.m., rescuers decided helicopter assistance would get the boy to a hospital much faster than an ambulance that would have to drive back down the mountain.
At 5:10 p.m., a Black Hawk helicopter from Buckley Air Force Base arrived. An hour later, the pilot told rescuers on the ground he was unable to reach the teen.
The search and rescue team immediately began the slow process of hoisting him up as they waited for a Chinook helicopter to fly in from Buckley.
By 8 p.m., helmeted rescuers could be seen from the top with a litter in hand, the blazing pink sunset over the Rocky Mountains behind them.
The helicopter landed on the summit 20 minutes later, and by 8:30, the boy was en route to the hospital.
"The whole thing today was interesting, just thinking five more minutes, five more minutes, five more minutes," Tim Hayden with El Paso County Search and Rescue said to the group of rescuers after the teen was on the way to the hospital. "I just couldn't believe the cooperation up here today."
Also on scene were officials from Cascade Fire, Green Mountain Falls Fire, Colorado Springs Fire and Colorado Springs police.
Hayden said the afternoon was full of frustrating judgment calls.
"Do we do the ground evac or wait for the helicopter?" he said.
A similar scene on Pikes Peak summit took place in 1992, when a college student whose girlfriend had broken up with him drove off the mountain.
He did not survive.
