riverc0il
05-14-2001, 06:31 PM
From the Monday edition of The Eagle-Tribune down here in Haverhill, MA. Reprinted without permission http://timefortuckerman.com/ubb/wink.gif.
MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. (AP) -- The first thing Vicky Mercier planned to do Mother's Day evening was call her mother and tell her she was alive.
Another 60 minutes stuck 20 feet deep in a crevasse in Mount Washington's Tuckerman Ravine, someone else might have made the call to St. Albans, VT., with a much more somber news.
Ms. Mercier, 26, who recently moved to Farmington, was show-shoeing by herself on the ravine's steep headwall yesterday afternoon [Sunday May 13, 2001] while dozens of adventurous skiers skied the less ominous bowl to her right.
"All of a sudden my snowshoes went out from under me and I went for a ride. I couldn't stop," she said.
Tumbling head over heels, she disappeared into the 15-foot wide crevasse. She hit rick on one side, packed snow on the other, until she miraculously landed on her feet, but wedged at the bottom. Her feet were in a frigid underground stream that showered over her head, soaking her. She could barely move but managed to reach a whistle a friend had given her the previous night, blew it and yelled for help.
Two snowboarders heard her.
"I was pretty cold," she said a few hours later, her teeth still chattering as she was treated by forest service words.
"I was OK once I heard their voices," she said.
But the snowboarders and skiers couldn't reach her.
"She was standing in the space of a phone booth," said Kevin LaRue, of the Mount Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol. "We couldn't send a person down because there was no space to work"
They also couldn't lower a harness that would fit around her waist and legs because she couldn't more to put it on, and they knew time was running out.
"Out greatest concern was hypothermia," said Chris Josson, a ranger for the National Forest Service. "Falling into a crevasse is the most dangerous thing you can do up here."
So rescuers lowered a shoulder harness, and three men, using a pulley system, pulled Ms. Mercier out 39 minutes after her ordeal began.
Rescuers used ropes to lower her in a basket down the bowl and then, after determining she was not seriously injured, walked her about a half mile down the steep, rocky trail.
Ms. Mercier was treated for ankle and two injuries, and managed to drive home by herself.
MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. (AP) -- The first thing Vicky Mercier planned to do Mother's Day evening was call her mother and tell her she was alive.
Another 60 minutes stuck 20 feet deep in a crevasse in Mount Washington's Tuckerman Ravine, someone else might have made the call to St. Albans, VT., with a much more somber news.
Ms. Mercier, 26, who recently moved to Farmington, was show-shoeing by herself on the ravine's steep headwall yesterday afternoon [Sunday May 13, 2001] while dozens of adventurous skiers skied the less ominous bowl to her right.
"All of a sudden my snowshoes went out from under me and I went for a ride. I couldn't stop," she said.
Tumbling head over heels, she disappeared into the 15-foot wide crevasse. She hit rick on one side, packed snow on the other, until she miraculously landed on her feet, but wedged at the bottom. Her feet were in a frigid underground stream that showered over her head, soaking her. She could barely move but managed to reach a whistle a friend had given her the previous night, blew it and yelled for help.
Two snowboarders heard her.
"I was pretty cold," she said a few hours later, her teeth still chattering as she was treated by forest service words.
"I was OK once I heard their voices," she said.
But the snowboarders and skiers couldn't reach her.
"She was standing in the space of a phone booth," said Kevin LaRue, of the Mount Washington Volunteer Ski Patrol. "We couldn't send a person down because there was no space to work"
They also couldn't lower a harness that would fit around her waist and legs because she couldn't more to put it on, and they knew time was running out.
"Out greatest concern was hypothermia," said Chris Josson, a ranger for the National Forest Service. "Falling into a crevasse is the most dangerous thing you can do up here."
So rescuers lowered a shoulder harness, and three men, using a pulley system, pulled Ms. Mercier out 39 minutes after her ordeal began.
Rescuers used ropes to lower her in a basket down the bowl and then, after determining she was not seriously injured, walked her about a half mile down the steep, rocky trail.
Ms. Mercier was treated for ankle and two injuries, and managed to drive home by herself.