This is a tale from times when equipment was limited and knowledge was not widely shared. The victim in this report is an old friend of mine, so I know what I think about it. I'm interested to hear any comments you might have. The trip leader is Stan. Ginny (not Colleen!) is the victim.
STAN Premonition
1979
BESIDES WORKING DAY SHIFT in the coal mine, I taught an evening class for the community college. The course , Caves and Underground Water, culminated in a caving trip to the Flattops, a wilderness area north of Glenwood Springs. We were headed for a wild cave called Premonition, high on the rim of Deep Creek Canyon, which deserves
its name, being a full 2,000 feet deep.
We camped in the bottom of the canyon , in the ferns and cottonwoods. It was late spring. Wild violets were blooming; the cold, clear water of Deep Creek gurgled nearby. As we huddled around the fire, talk turned uneasy concerning the day ahead . I assured the students there'd never been a serious accident in my dozen years leading outdoor trips.
Next morning, as we worked our way up the canyon , a student asked, "What are you getting us into? " Since he was a rugged fellow, a Forest Service employee, his question struck me as odd. We were headed into another fine adventure in the Colorado Rockies, and I was relishing every minute of it .
We hiked for quite a while along the creek. Camping was fun, but cold. One man brought ramen to cook and heated water for that. He gave me some. We all talked excitedly about our coming adventure into Premonition Cave, the very remote cave that only 12 people had managed to get into. We would make history in the caving world.
GINNY
The hike up there was hard; no trail, straight up over rocks and snow. I had a backpack on with sleeping bag and supplies. That made it hard for me to climb. A fellow student carried my pack up a very steep slippery slope. We actually climbed up some icy rock faces using our hand picks.
STAN
We were relishing every minute of it . I gazed an exhilarating mile across the chasm to the oppo- site rim, its limestone cliffs still locked in snow. We were far from any trail. Above us, water was already trickling over the south-facing rim. The space beneath us descended into a cacophony of jagged buttresses and amphitheaters, spires, ridges, and steep ra- vines.
After several hours we clambered to the top, emerging onto a gently rolling ever- green forest at 10,000 feet. Here and there, we trod on spongy ground where snow had only recently melted. Pea-green nubs of skunk cabbage poked through last year's matted grass. We wandered along the rim, searching for Premonition Cave. Then I spied it. From atop a ziggurat-shaped outcrop of limestone, I could see a giant parapet leaning out over the canyon, guarding a hole as big as a subway tunnel. That had to be Premonition.
An hour later we had rigged a nylon sling around a scrubby fir tree and thrown a climbing rope over the edge, hoping it would reach the mouth of the cave. Down from
the tree lay 20 feet of sloping karst, interspersed with bits of grass and rock spirea. A sudden sharp edge. Then , nothing. The cliff fell away into empty space.
This massive limestone cliff curved around to the right, forming a rust-pink curtain. I trotted a hundred yards along the edge to a place where I could look down to check the rappel rope. The blue line fell straight onto the sloping ledge in front of the cave. It was already late afternoon. We were set to go down.
Colleen Derry volunteered to go first. She was a pretty, milk- complexioned young woman with long, dark hair that flowed gracefully down her back. She tucked it inside her jacket, then confidently stepped into the climbing harness. I pulled up a bight of rappel rope and fed it through a large figure-eight descender and clipped that onto her harness with two carabiners. The aluminum figure eight would bear the friction of her descent. I snugged an additional rope around her waist as a safety precaution, and tied it with a bowline. She would have a belay all the way down.
Colleen leaned against the rope and walked backward to the edge of the cliff. A few awkward moves over the sharp comer, and she was committed to the descent. She glanced up and smiled, then disappeared into the chasm. I trotted back around the amphitheater to view her progress. She glided smoothly down like a spider for 80 feet, then stopped and im- mediately began calling for help. I didn't know it then, but the bowline had slipped up around her diaphragm and was cutting off her air. The belay rope-the extra safety line-was too short. Her calls became frantic. A shudder of energy kicked through me as I hurried back to the rappel site. This was it. No time to rig a harness.
GINNY
“Colleen Derry”, haha! Try Ginny Spangler. I did volunteer. I was so excited to rappel and be the Number 13 person to explore the cave. I wasn’t scared. Many of the other members looked a little hesitant and wanted someone to go first. The additional rope around my waist was not hooked into the descender.
It was so much fun descending backwards down the cliff face, about 2,000 above the creek floor. The cliff was wet with snow melt water, like a little water- fall. I was soaked but didn’t care. This was fun!
As I rappelled past the rocks and into the gaping mouth of the cave, the additional belay rope around my waist abruptly stopped, I thought it was stuck on a rock and all I had to do was swing my body to get it unstuck. I called to them to help with the rope, but I was unaware that the rope was too short to reach the cave floor. I learned this much later. As I twisted and wiggled to get the rope un- stuck, I began to pass out because the rope had migrated up to my chest area. My last thought was “I hope they find me.” I said “Help!” with my remaining air, then my head went back and cold melt water flowed into my mouth. “I’m going to drown here,” I thought.
And then, I was floating above the canyon, feeling free and peaceful. I thought I could hear someone calling to me, but I didn’t want to answer. I was so happy where I was. It was true “paradise,” something I never felt since.
STAN
Mack Hoover, my close friend and caving partner, had a teenage daughter, Laurel, who had accompanied us on this excursion. Preparing to descend the rope, I turned to Laurel and said, "Start praying." I grabbed a Gibbs ascender and clipped it onto the rope, but in my hurry, put it on upside down. Laurel pointed to the ascender. I righted it, then started down hand over hand. Colleen's voice went deep like a man 's. Her last call for help made my scalp crawl-an unearthly groan floating up from some black, hideous abyss. I could see her suspended in space below me, head back, arms and legs flung out. My toes barely touched the wall as I descended the rope. They brushed against a large rock, which came loose, hurtling slow motion head over end, straight toward her out-flung body, then flew past her and crashed on the ledge below.
I came to a fisherman 's knot , which the ascender wouldn't go past. By this time the wall was overhanging , so I hung from the rope with one hand while disconnecting the Gibbs with the other, then reattached the Gibbs below the knot . I didn't know if I could hold on all the way down. I continued descending the rope hand over hand, fore- arms turning to wood, until my numb hands lost their grip. Whirrrrrr , slide. A jerk and a catch-the Gibbs held. The rope yo-yoed up and down. I shook my arms out and climbed on down.
When I reached her body, I didn't know what to do. There was no way to mouth-to- mouth her while swinging out in space. I slid down the rope to the cave, clambered up some narrow shelves, then began hauling on the rope till Colleen 's body hovered over me. "Cut the rope] Cut the rope1" I yelled to the top of the cliff. Would they dare cut it? That would be the only chance of saving her.
After a breathtaking minute, the rope sprang free, and Colleen dropped into my lap.
He later told me that he held onto my legs, but my body dropped backward down hard on the rocks below. My climbing helmet had fallen off when I passed out, so when the rope was cut, my unprotected head took quite a blow to the back of it. Doctors later said that the blow affected the area of large muscle coordination
I sat on the cramped rock ledge with her limp body sprawled across me pieta-fashion. I prayed with an intensity I had never experienced before. "Dear God," I pleaded, "please give me the life of this woman."
I pinched her nose and breathed forcefully into her mouth as I had been taught in EMT class. Nothing. I breathed again and again, pushing air as deeply as I could into her lungs. Her eyes were rolled back. Her gray face wore a sardonic half smile. Dead air belched out of her lungs each time I tried to blow it in. The horror of losing a student struck deeply into my conscience. I prayed fervently, only to be mocked by exhalations of stagnant air.
This was not going to work. I decided to haul her down from the ledge to flat ground at the mouth of the cave, where I had a better chance of resuscitating her. Awkwardly I ma- neuvered her body down some small ledges to the cave entrance, then resumed my efforts. I breathed into her over and over again, thinking this was the end.
Then, like the miracle of springtime , her beautiful brown eyes opened and she smiled as if awakened from a pleasant dream. Darkness, then light. It was a sight too sweet for words. The Forest Service worker, Tom, appeared with his grizzled beard and spectacles. "How did you get down here?" I asked. He looked at me with haunted eyes. "Don't even ask," he re- plied. "I nearly died."
Colleen had hung under a steady drizzle from melting snow. She was sopping wet, and now the sun was setting. Tom and I carried her into the cave and stripped off her wet clothes. We were not only dealing with a near-asphyxiation, but hypothermia as well. Tom and I stripped and made a pallet of our clothes, then lay beside her, one on each side, as the night settled in. Colleen was incoherent and kept moaning, 'T m cold." In this way we spent a long, miserable night .
GINNY
I don’t remember waking up at this point. I do remember that I wanted to stay in my “free floating paradise”, but I knew I had a seven month old baby at home, Joe, and I needed to come back to him. Then I could hear the tension in the men’s voices; they thought I was dead. I tried to make a sound or movement to let them know I was still alive. It was very hard, but I managed to groan, which sounded to me like an animal sound. I could tell by their voices that they were excited that I had made a sound and was not dead. Then I remember nothing until many hours later in the night.
I remember waking up during the night to find two naked men on top of me and I was naked, too. My first thought was “Oh, my God, I forgot to shave my legs.” They woke at the same time and were happy that I seemed “okay.” I was feeling quite happy at the moment until my bowels decided to release, at which time I had to be carried to a remote spot in the cave. I felt so humiliated. I was hungry and the men melted life saver candies in water to give me tea. me if I heard Jesus talking to me. “No”, I answered.
STAN
Next morning we had dry clothes lowered by rope from the top of the cliff. Colleen had a bulging goose egg on her side, which we thought meant internal hemorrhaging. There was no time to waste. Tom would stay with Colleen, monitor vital signs, and give what aid he could. I climbed from the back entrance to the top of the cliff via an easy route we hadn 't seen the day before. A student, Rex McGuire , volunteered to run down the long canyon with me for help. It was a wild downhill scramble three miles before we hit a trail and even- tually reached a gravel road.
We hitchhiked to Glenwood Springs, where I called my wife and told her the bad news. She called Flight for Life in Denver. I called the sheriff, who in turn mobilized the mountain rescue team. The whole process went slowly, hours passing before we packed into jeeps with rescue gear and headed back to the cave. This time we took a back route, traveling on private property over big, open country west of the canyon. As we jostled along the primi- tive four-wheel drive trail, the rescuers joked as if on their way to a picnic.
I kept wondering if we would find Colleen alive.
GINNY
While he was gone, I wanted to go into the cave and explore, but I couldn’t walk. Rex didn’t think that was a good idea, but I was insistent.
He held me up and we walked into the cave. I wanted to say that I was “Number 13” person to enter. I could only go about 10 feet, but I made it!
STAN
We arrived at the north rim after an hour and a half, and the crew
went to work setting up rappel lines and a hoisting system. Teeny Jeung, an ER nurse, would be lowered into the cave to examine Colleen. This was Teeny's first technical moun- tain rescue. Two rescuers good- naturedly competed for the honor of rigging her up for her first rappel. Down she went, over the easy terrain I had climbed early in the morning.
In the cave, Teeny quickly decided Colleen needed serious medical attention. Other res- cuers descended the cliff, bundled Colleen into a Stokes litter, and maneuvered her across a ledge to a point directly below the haul lines. On signal, the crew on top began hoisting, and Colleen, immobilized like a mummy in the wire basket, began her slow ascent, accompa- nied by three crew members who inched their way up with the litter. Several times rocks cut loose above them, and the rescuers interposed their backs and helmeted heads to shelter Colleen from injury.
A Flight for Life helicopter was dispatched from St. Anthony 's in Denver. By the time Colleen 's litter reached the top of the cliff, we could hear the helicopter's distant pulsing in the badlands to the east. In the alpine grass a hundred yards up the rubble slope from the cave, we made a 20-foot X with red tape, anchoring the ends with packed snow. The chop- per grew larger as it approached, refracting a glint of gold from the setting sun. Then the helicopter became a roaring black beast and descended out of the sky onto our landing pad. The doors opened and Colleen was loaded in, still wrapped in her cocoon. The machine lifted off as darkness settled onto the Flattops. The rescue team packed their jeeps and re- turned to Glenwood. The rest of us spent the night on the canyon rim and hiked out the next day.
GINNY
I didn’t like the rescuers. They put an oxygen mask over my nose, which felt annoying and claustrophobic. Then I was swung out over the canyon in my mummy bag in the basket. I felt helpless and vulnerable. The basket bounced along the rocks as it was slowly dragged to the top.
STAN
The machine lifted off as darkness settled onto the Flattops. The rescue team packed their jeeps and returned to Glenwood. The rest of us spent the night on the canyon rim and hiked out the next day.
Colleen was released from the hospital after a few days, but it took time for her to recover. She graciously invited the caving class to her home for a party. I gave her one of my paintings, and she gave me one of hers-an arid landscape with rough rocks in the foreground and an olive-green thicket just beyond. It reminds my wife and me of Gethsemane. We have it hanging on our wall at home. Each time I look at that painting, I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you, God , for sparing Colleen's life.
GINNY
I was flown to the Glenwood Springs Hospital. They had no spare rooms available so I spent the night in the hall. I had a cracked vertebra in my back, a concussion to the back of the head, a broken rib and displaced hip. I couldn’t walk. Since I had no health insurance, they sent me home after a few days with minimal treatment.
I couldn’t walk for about 6 months. The broken rib was the most painful part of recovery. The flight for life helicopter sent a bill for $4000 and because I had no health insurance, I filed a suit against the college and Stan Badgett. We were awarded $8000, but $4000 went to the helicopter and the lawyer took $2000. With the remaining $2000, we upgraded our recently purchased farm in Hotchkiss, Colorado. I lost contact with Stan Badgett at that point. I felt conflicted about filing a lawsuit against him since he risked his life to save me, but I needed the money to pay the bills associated with the accident.
