By John Branton
The Columbian
Copyright 2007 Columbian.com
LA CENTER, Wash. — Alex Aday was hiking along a steep wooded bank a week ago with a buddy, exploring the area around his home near La Center.
“We were just out walking around,” said Aday, 15, a freshman at La Center High School. “We didn’t have anything else to do. We were bored.”
Not for long.
As Aday walked along the steep slope, made treacherous by branches, loose rocks and fallen leaves, his feet slipped.
Suddenly, he said later, “I was sliding down the hill, on my back and my butt. I was trying to grab branches, anything I could to stop, but I just kept on going faster and faster.
“I was thinking I was going to die and not be able to see my friends and my family again.”
Then his situation worsened.
Still sliding out of control, he plummeted over a cliff. He fell about 35 feet, landing on his feet on rocks and tree branches.
“I tried to get up, and I fell right down because I felt a sharp pain in my back.”
With Aday lying injured at the base of the cliff, his friend, Devan Stevenson, 12, went for help - and set in motion a three-hour rescue operation that would involve about 25 firefighters from five departments.
Stevenson climbed up the bank to Northeast Lockwood Creek Road, just west of 40th Avenue, and flagged down a passing vehicle.
The driver, a friend of the Aday family, used his cell phone to call 911, then called the injured boy’s father, Daniel Aday.
Daniel Aday had been at the mall in Vancouver. He jumped into his car and drove to the scene of his son’s fall, a mile east of La Center.
“My adrenaline was going 100 mph,” the father said.
Taking off his cowboy boots, which he said are “too slippery, smooth on the bottom” - and shrugging off an official who wanted him to stay on the road - Daniel Aday, in his socks, made his way down to his son.
It was a steep route, made difficult by large standing trees and logs, Devil’s club thorn bushes and boulders.
When he reached his son, he found Eric Lawrence, a firefighter-paramedic with Fire District 12, already working with the teen.
Lawrence had radioed other rescuers above on the road, saying Alex Aday was seriously injured.
The boy was conscious, at least most of the time, and he could answer questions. And he was in pain, officials said.
Up on the road, minutes after being called about 5:40 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 31, Fire District 12 Chief Larry Bartel and his crews were developing a plan to rescue Alex Aday.
As Bartel’s crews started rigging ropes to be used in the operation, Richard Britschgi, a volunteer firefighter, was sent to scout the area to find out if the boy could be carried downhill.
Britschgi, who lives nearby, said he was the first firefighter to arrive at the scene. He caught a ride with a Clark County Sheriff’s Office deputy to where Lockwood Creek itself goes under the road and got out.
Hiking up the creek to where the injured teen was lying, Britschgi brought bad news. There was no safe downhill route.
To make matters worse, radios at that point weren’t working well, said District 12 Firefighter Sean Kearns.
“We were kind of in a hole,” said Kearns, who also had made his way down to Alex Aday’s location.
Climbing back up to the road, Kearns discussed the situation with Division Chief Tim Dawdy and other officials. Kearns then used a rope to descend once again, carrying a “stokes” rescue basket, backboard, cervical spine collar and a small oxygen tank for the injured boy.
In view of the terrain, rescuers decided that the best option was to bring the teen straight up the cliff, using rope and pulley systems in what’s called a high-angle rescue.
Technical rescue
As a result, they called the Technical Rescue Team, a group of specially trained firefighters with the Vancouver Fire Department and Fire District 6.
Firefighter Bill Dunlap with District 6, a member of the technical rescue team, said they looked at the terrain, and the ropes already in place, and decided to set up their own ropes and pulleys.
Ten or more ropes, each certified to hold 10,000 pounds, were set in place. Firefighters fastened them to fire engines parked on the road and shoulder, and waited for the signal to haul on them.
Each rescuer over the bank was attached to a main line and a safety line, said Firefighter and tech-team member Matt Ramp with the Vancouver Fire Department.
The main lines then were fastened to haul lines, which use pulleys that create a 5-to-1 mechanical advantage. That means that a 500-pound load can be lifted with 100 pounds of force.
The definition of high-angle rescue is that, if the rope system failed, the terrain is so steep that the rescue basket would fall or slide backward, officials said.
As the ropes were readied, Jamie Richards, a tech-team member and firefighter-paramedic with the Vancouver Fire Department, was chosen to descend to the injured boy, take charge of his care and guide his journey up the cliff.
‘Pretty challenging’
When it was time for crews on the road to haul the boy up, Richards would be attached directly to the rescue basket and use his arms keep it moving around rocks, trees, stumps and other obstacles.
He and others would radio or shout hauling instructions to rescuers above them, when to pull, when to stop.
“It looked like it was going to be pretty challenging,” Richards said.
Wearing a nylon and Kevlar full-body harness with several carabiners, a yellow poly-carbon plastic helmet, gloves and heavy boots, and equipped with lights and a radio, Richards went down.
“When I went over the edge, they’d already been down there with the patient, getting him packaged” in the rescue basket, Richards said.
Dunlap also was assigned to descend to the patient. His job was to stay below, gripping a tag line attached to the basket, as it and its load moved up.
By pulling on the rope, Dunlap could help maneuver the basket around obstacles.
Kearns’ assignment put him above the rescue basket, so he could work the ropes attached to the basket and help maneuver it.
Darkness was approaching, and crews were setting up lights at the haul site, when all was ready to haul Alex Aday, Richards and Kearns up the cliff.
“We knew we had to get him scootin’,” Dunlap said.
Once they made it over the cliff, the terrain would become less steep, but still difficult.
As several firefighters in two crews held onto two sets of haul ropes, Ramp, a tech-team leader, stood on the bank by the road, shouting commands such as “up on blue,” “down on red” to the haul crews. At intervals, Ramp would yell “reset,” meaning that the pulleys had to be repositioned.
A short distance down the slope, Lt. Kevin Todd with District 6, a tech-team supervisor, was talking by radio with Richards. Todd then relayed Richards’ orders to Ramp and the haul crews.
After about 45 minutes of intense hauling, it all paid off.
About 8:30 p.m., Richards and Kearns arrived at the road with the boy, who was placed in an AMR Northwest ambulance. The ambulance took the boy to a waiting Life Flight helicopter, which flew him to OHSU Hospital in Portland.
Teen thankful
Initially listed in serious condition, Alex Aday later was released and went home.
He suffered cracked or broken bones, including lower vertebrae, and is wearing neck and back braces. He’s scheduled to be examined soon by a spinal specialist, and has more minor injuries to his arms and ankle, he and family members said.
The teen said he can walk short distances. Due to his injuries, he won’t get to play football at the high school, as he’d planned.
“I’d like to say thanks for getting me out of there safely,” he told The Columbian. “Somebody obviously wanted me to live.”
Make that lots of somebodys.
“I know it’s because of so many prayers that went out for him,” said his grandmother, Clara Aday. “It just could have been so much worse.”
“I’m glad I could be there and help out,” said Richards.
Even though the rope haulers on the road did 95 percent of the lifting, it was strenuous for him as well, Richards said.
“I was tired all right,” Richards said. “It was a workout.”
“These are the calls firefighters love to go on,” Dunlap said. “This was the call that will make this month for us. We’ll talk about it for a while. The exciting stuff is where it’s at.”