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Eagle Lake Rescue
September 1993
West slope SAR teams rolled over Echo Summit and down into the Tahoe Basin on Saturday evening, September 11, 1993 on behalf of a 19-year old male who had fallen in the Eagle Lake area, broken his arm and was unable to walk out.
The young man and a friend, both from Marin County, had been hiking cross country over a rocky peak north of Eagle Lake when he had slipped and fallen first 20 feet, and then another 30 feet. He had sustained a broken arm. His friends had hiked out for help and reported that the victim was at 8800 feet on steep, rugged and trailless terrain.
Initially, the Meek's bay Fire Department responded and two EMT's managed to reach the victim. Any hope of walking the victim out disappeared when the EMT's discovered that the young man also had a concussion.
So, a helicopter evacuation was arranged, and a chopper from Care Flight of Reno was dispatched. But when the chopper arrived, 20-40 mph wind gusts made it impossible to land, so it had to return to Reno empty.
IC Randy Peshan then ordered a Search and Rescue callout, which started at approximately 2000 hours. After racing over the hill, searchers from the West Slope began arriving at the Vikingsholm command post on Emerald Bay between 2100 and 2200.
An advance party of two Tahoe SAR members had already started carrying supplies to the site, and a second party was assembling to do a nighttime carryout. However, in yet another setback, these plans had to be scrubbed when the first team radioed back that the rugged climb was too difficult to attempt in the dark. Frustrated, the searchers could do nothing but rest and maybe sleep for 2 or 3 hours.
Meanwhile, the four people on the mountain prepared to endure a cold, windy night in the open without shelter, food or water. They huddled around a campfire and tried to get some sleep.
At 4 a.m. the searchers assembled for another attempt. This time, the plan was to take the trail to Eagle Lake before dawn, climb the mountain by first light, and prepare the victim for a pick-off by a rescue helicopter from Fallon Naval Air Station. Nine Sierra West volunteers stripped their packs to the lightest possible weight, and started hiking up the Eagle Lake trail in the darkness carrying a Stokes litter laden with medical and climbing equipment.
The team reached Eagle Lake just in time to be impressed by the gradual illumination of the tremendous peaks around them. They were also impressed by the size of the mountain they had to climb.
However, Fallon Naval Air Station had wasted no time in launching a helicopter, and before the team could begin their climb, the pilot was overhead and talking to the EMT's. It was good timing in more ways than one - just after the EMT's talked "Longline 6" into their location, their radio batteries went dead. However, it was no problem. When the pilot got no further talk from the EMT's, she just dropped smoke and proceeded to winch the medic to the ground, while the Sierra West Team watched from Eagle Lake. In short order, the patient and medic were lifted back into the helicopter and transported to the airport to meet an ambulance.
Apart from the patient, no one appreciated the fine performance of the pilot and her crew more than the Sierra West people on the ground, who were saved a long, tough climb of over 1000 vertical feet with the litter.
On a technical note, the entire search was conducted on a fire channel (White Fire 1, 154.280 Mhz), because that was what the EMT's had. Sierra West radios also have this channel, although this may be the first time it was actually needed. Nevertheless, it proves we can run at least a small search on a channel other than CLEMARS if we need to.
Special thanks are extended to the Meeks Bay Fire Station for letting a group of searchers use their upstairs living room as sleeping quarters. This fire station is about 15-20 minutes north of Emerald Bay. And it's warm.
Compliments also go out to IC Randy Peshan and Tim Ranalla of Tahoe SAR for managing to find coffee, juice and real breakfasts for all the searchers at 4 a.m. Sunday morning. Good job, guys!
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