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Two Recent Rescues on Mt. Hood Analyzed 
HB 2509 was approved by the Oregon House on March 28, 2007 and
sent to the Senate
'They all disappeared': 3 climbers die on Hood
The Oregonian
Eric Mortenson and Stuart Tomlinson
May 31, 2002
Twin calamities struck on Oregon's highest mountain Thursday, when a chain-reaction accident sent nine climbers careening into a treacherous
crevasse, killing three.
Five hours later, a military rescue helicopter attempting to lift an injured climber veered out of control, smashed into the side of Mount Hood and rolled at
least seven times before coming to a rest on its top.
The crash, captured live by television station helicopters, sent rotor shards flying viciously across the mountainside toward rescuers who were still making
their way to the crevasse.
Crew members were thrown from the helicopter as it rolled. One appeared to be rolled over as he frantically scrambled down the mountainside.
Accounts varied through the day, but officials said 12 people were injured, including six aboard the helicopter. All the injured were taken to Portland
hospitals. Rescuers had not released the names of the dead by late Thursday night.
By 9:30 p.m., rescuers with two of the dead climbers in towed litter sleds were inching their way down to waiting Sno-Cats around 9,500 feet. Sgt. Nick
Watt of the Clackamas County sheriff's office said four rescuers would spend the night on the mountain with the third victim because of icy conditions.
"We don't want to risk anyone else," Watt said, adding that six fresh climbers would climb the mountain at first light to bring the last victim down.
The events amounted to the worst single accident on Mount Hood since May 1986, when seven students and two adults from Oregon Episcopal School
froze to death after being trapped in a whiteout while trying to climb the mountain.
It could have been even worse. Rescuers had just hooked the helicopter's hoist line to an injured climber when the chopper spun out of control. The
helicopter crew had the presence of mind to bank away and release the line; otherwise the climber would have been thrashed down the mountain.
Mike Leming, of Portland Mountain Rescue, credited the helicopter pilot with saving his life and the lives of other rescuers.
"He banked left to keep from hitting us," said Leming, 38, who was working on the injured climber when the accident happened. "He knew he was going to
kill us so he just started moving out of the way."
Leming said he watched the helicopter go out of control and smash into the snow. "Bodies started flying out of the cockpit," he said. "It was brutal."
Ski patrolman Jeff Livick stood and screamed as he saw the helicopter crashing. Livick and others were leaning over the third patient to be transported,
protecting him from the rush of wind and ice chunks driven by the helicopters rotors. Suddenly, Livick felt the wind ebb, and the cable connecting the
helicopter and the stretcher went slack.
As Livick screamed, the helicopter rotors exploded against the mountain, and the machine started to roll, ejecting the flight engineer and rolling over him
twice before his gunbelt webbing ripped away from the helicopter.
Livick clicked on his skis and went to the flight engineer, who was injured, but alert.
"His saving grace was soft snow," Livick said.
Domino effect The accident that started it all Thursday happened about 9 a.m. as four teams of roped climbers picked their way near the top of the
11,240-foot mountain.
One member of a four-person party slipped, bringing his team down upon two other climbers. They in turn smashed into three more, and all nine slid
about 250 feet into the bergschrund, a horizontal gash about 800 feet below the summit. The crack opens each spring as snow begins to melt, and can
grow to about 50 feet deep and 20 to 30 feet wide.
The six people who survived the fall into the crevasse either climbed out or were pulled out by other climbers within an
hour. Two of those who fell were from Windsor, Calif.: Tom Hillman, 45, and John Biggs, 62. Hillman told his wife, Holly, that he and Biggs were climbing down when another group collided
with them, pushing them down the mountain.
Hillman was in serious condition at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center with a head injury. Biggs' condition was not known.
Hillman and Biggs were members of a group attempting to climb the highest mountains in each state. Biggs' daughter, Danielle Bowerman, said her
father is adventurous.
"My dad is basically the kind of guy who wants a lot of challenges," she told the Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press Democrat. "Mount Hood was the latest one."
Erick Gillmore, a paramedic with American Medical Response, said the three climbers who died suffered massive trauma.
"It was a very hard fall," he said. One body lay about 20 feet down from the lip of the crevasse. The other two had fallen into a hole and were another 20
feet down, he said.
He said he heard that one victim appeared to have died immediately, while the other two died subsequently from internal injuries. All three were facedown
in the snow when he saw them, Gillmore said.
The climbing groups included six members of Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue. One of them, Assistant Fire Marshal Cleve Joiner, also was accompanied by
his 14-year-old son, Cole, who was in a group of three ahead of him.
"They all disappeared," Cleve Joiner said. "It was a little weird to see my son disappear.
"I saw the whole thing," he said. "It was just unbelievable. You were seeing this thing happen and you're thinking it's not good."
Joiner used a cell phone to call Clackamas County 9-1-1 dispatchers.
Cole Joiner recalled seeing people hurtling down toward him and heard another in his party yell a warning.
A Hood River physician who was descending with his son and daughter said the climbers were unable to avoid being knocked down when the first group
slipped.
"They were just going too fast," Dr. Jim Pennington said. "It was a domino effect."
Pennington said two paramedics took charge and rigged ropes and pulleys to haul victims out of the crevasse. Pennington and Dr. Steve Boyer, a
member of another climbing team, assisted.
Boyer, 55, an emergency room physician at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Beaverton, was about 20 minutes from the fallen climbers, making
his 115th-or-so climb of Mount Hood.
When he reached the scene, bodies were jumbled in the snow and paramedics from Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue had already started assessing how
badly the climbers were hurt, who needed to be flown out first and giving treatment.
Boyer climbed into the crevasse and went to work.
"It's sobering, but I think ER physicians and paramedics are sobered by their daily work," Boyer said. "We all are aware of what can happen and take
steps to avoid it."
Boyer was working over the injured when the helicopter crashed about 50 feet away.
"I just looked in horror as the helicopter started to go down," Boyer said. "Suddenly, a completely separate rescue was going on."
Massive rescue effort Cleve Joiner's call for help Thursday morning set in motion one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts on the mountain since the
Oregon Episcopal School tragedy 16 years ago. Climbers from Portland Mountain Rescue and Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue climbed to the
scene of the accident after being transported by a Sno-Cat to upper elevations.
Additional rescuers came from American Medical Response's Reach-and-Treat team, the Clackamas County sheriff's office, the U.S. Forest Service and
numerous volunteer agencies.
In the air, four helicopters from the 1042 Army National Guard unit in Salem, and two helicopters from the 304th Rescue Squadron of the 939thAir Force
Reserve Rescue Wing in Portland ferried the injured to hospitals in Portland.
It was during the evacuation effort that the helicopter crashed about 1:50 p.m. The craft involved was a HH-60G Pave Hawk from the Air Force Reserve's
939th Rescue Wing in Portland. Designed for combat search-and-rescue missions, the 10-ton Pave Hawk is built to take small arms fire, absorb
high-impact landings and has a self-sealing fuel system to prevent fires.
The helicopter's crew had lifted two of the climbers down the mountainside to a staging area at Timberline Lodge and transferred them to waiting Oregon
National Guard Black Hawk helicopters.
But as the crew was trying to get in position to pick up a third climber, it went out of control and nosed into the mountainside, its heavy rotor breaking into
pieces as it rolled.
The body of chopper remained intact even as the rotors splintered and the craft rolled, coming to rest at the base of an outcropping and volcanic vent
called Crater Rock.
The helicopter accident stunned those working to rescue the climbers.
"It is part of our family," said Scott Nielson, vice commander of the 939th Rescue Wing, whose helicopter crashed. "We have several very upset people,
as you can imagine. Lots of people who were watching it were very upset. And we're taking care of our family."
"These people risk their lives every day," said Deputy Angela Blanchard of the Clackamas County sheriff's office. "It's a risk everybody who's in this
business takes."
The accident was a grim reminder of how deadly Mount Hood can be. Stately, perennially capped with snow and within an easy drive from Portland, the
11,240-foot mountain is Oregon's highest peak and attracts throngs of skiers, climbers and campers all year long. Because of the rescues and crash,
officials closed Mount Hood to all climbers indefinitely.
Mount Hood is among the most-climbed mountains in the world. Brian Wheeler, president of Northwest School of Survival-International Training Program
in Portland, said the south side ascent can be like a staircase, with dozens of climbers passing one another.
"There's basically a path to the summit this time of year, everybody takes the same route," Wheeler said.
Many of those climbers rope themselves together, so they can stop one another if someone falls. If they are unable to dig in, however, everyone in the
party can fall as well.
"It doesn't take more than a few seconds," Wheeler said. "You get so much speed going that you don't stop until that mountain decides to let you stop."
Contributing to this report were Ryan Frank, Harry Esteve, Peter Farrell, Catherine Trevision, Holly Danks, Gordon Oliver and Lisa Daniels of The
Oregonian staff.
--The Oregonian News Online
WARNING - *DISCLAIMER!*
Mountain climbing has inherent dangers that can in part, be mitigated
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MOUNT HOOD
