A father and son, an Air Force veteran and other hikers improvised a rope line from carabiners and slings to reach a woman and her fiancé stranded on the rock face, according to SFGATE.
A group of hikers formed a human chain to rescue a woman who slid down the rock face near the Half Dome cables in Yosemite National Park, SFGATE has reported. Brian Moran and his 20-year-old son, Ian, were finishing their hike on 12 October when they heard her scream, shortly after 2pm. The woman’s fiancé then became stranded on a narrow ledge as he tried to reach her. With no emergency crews yet on the scene, bystanders pooled their gear to bring both of them to safety.
The slip
According to SFGATE, onlookers saw the woman slip near the lower section of the cables and slide down the rock. She screamed and flailed her arms, they said, and tried to spread out her body to slow herself as she picked up speed. The wind was rising.
Mr Moran and his son feared the worst as she headed towards what looked like a sheer drop. “I just was shouting, ‘No, no, no!’ because I knew she was dead,” Mr Moran told SFGATE. “And then she stopped, and I just couldn’t believe it.”
Bystanders, including the Morans, said they began crying because they thought she was about to die.
The fiancé’s predicament
Ian Moran came up with a plan and climbed up the rock as onlookers, including his father, watched. “Hey, slow down, don’t put yourself at risk,” Mr Moran shouted, according to SFGATE. “That doesn’t help anything.”
At the same time, the woman’s fiancé climbed towards her. He lost his balance, however, and ended up pinned flat against the mountain, clinging to a narrow ledge by his fingertips.
When Ian reached the couple, he called out encouragement, told them help was coming and urged them to stay calm. He could tell the fiancé was quickly losing his grip. The Morans had accidentally left a newly bought rope, gloves and carabiners at their campsite during the morning rush.
An improvised rope line
Ian realised his sticky climbing shoes were not enough to reach the pair safely without equipment, and told a bystander to call emergency services. After ten tense minutes, two hikers carrying a rope joined the effort.
Together with Ian, they searched for a nylon-like fabric to fashion a harness and connect it to a pole. They gathered carabiners and slings that hikers use to clip their harnesses to the cables.
Soon afterwards, David Morgenstern, a US Air Force veteran, arrived on the rock and gave safety instructions. He took two carabiners and a sling to anchor and lower the line, and assigned one rescuer to secure the pole at the bottom. He then checked the knots on the chained carabiners while other hikers, Brian Moran among them, took up positions along the chain.
Rescuing the fiancé
Ian took on the most dangerous job. He scooted down the steep rock, gripping with his right hand and reaching for the stranded man with his left. One woman among the frightened onlookers prayed aloud, her voice rising, as Ian took the man’s hand and hauled him to safety.
Reaching the woman
Ian’s safety was only temporary. He joined the human chain at once to reach the woman, but she was too far down the slope. The group scrambled to collect another sling and more carabiners, calling down to reassure her.
When the chain still fell short, Mr Morgenstern suggested linking their climbing harnesses together. He later joked that he hoped MacGyver would be proud of the resourceful setup. He then told Ian: “I’ll go down to get her, if you’re OK with that.” Ian agreed.
“My confidence level in my ability to get her, backed by the team, was higher than my confidence in her ability to safely stay where she was, especially with the wind picking up,” Mr Morgenstern told SFGATE.
He took the harness and formed a new chain with seven men. He told the woman to stay calm and moved her up the rock as it began to snow lightly. After the rescue, he called 911 to report the incident and said it had been resolved.
