Mount Rainier Rangers Assist In Saving Life

Mount Rainier National Park (WA)
Rangers Assist In Saving Life

On the afternoon of May 16th, the Greenwater Volunteer Fire Department, which serves an area north of the park, was dispatched to a report of a man down and suffering seizures just off Highway 410 about two miles outside the park's east entrance. Rangers Geoff Walker and Gavin Wilson responded to a mutual aid call and arrived first on scene. According to friends who were with him, the 19-year-old, who had a preexisting heart condition, had stopped on the side of the highway to view an elk and was following it into the forest when he fell face first to the ground and began seizing. One of the friends began CPR while the other went to a nearby resort to call 911. Upon arrival, Wilson and Walker took over CPR. Within minutes Greenwater firefighters, including ranger Jen Rudnick, arrived on scene and an AED was used to restore his pulse. He was then carried to the Greenwater ambulance and transported to nearby Ranger Creek airstrip, where an American Medical Response ALS unit had just arrived. Soon thereafter an Airlift Northwest air ambulance landed. For over two hours, the flight nurses and a Buckley paramedic, assisted by rangers, firefighters, and EMTs, attempted to stabilize the man for the 25-minute flight to Harborview Hospital in Seattle. He required multiple successive shocks, continual CPR, and a high volume of cardiac medications before he was stable enough to fly. The nurses and paramedic remarked that they had never used so many medications before in such a situation, nearly exhausting everything they had with them. Two days later, the man's parents reported that he was breathing on his own and responding to yes or no questions.