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 Yosemite National Park Successfully Conducts Rescue on El Capitan Subscribe | What is RSS Date: September 28, 2011 September 28, 2011 High Angle Rescue of Austrian Climber who Severed Thumb 
 
 
 
 Yosemite National Park Search and Rescue Park Rangers completed a complex, high angle, helicopter rescue on El Capitan on Monday afternoon, September 26, 2011, in which an Austrian climber severed his thumb. 
 
 
 
 Two rock climbers were ascending El Capitan on The Nose Route, a popular and difficult climbing route on the 7,569 granite monolith in Yosemite Valley. After two days of climbing, the climbers were approximately 1,000 feet below the summit. In mid-afternoon, the lead climber sustained a fall that was not life threatening. However, during the fall, a secondary rope became wrapped around his right thumb, severing the appendage clean from the hand. The severed thumb miraculously fell approximately 80 feet and landed on a two foot by one foot ledge. The climbing partner was able to retrieve the thumb and the pair called the Yosemite National Park Emergency Communication Center seeking emergency assistance. 
 
 
 
 At 3:50 p.m., the park's contract helicopter, piloted by Richard Shatto, along with Helitec Crewmembers Jeff Pirog and Eric Small, and Yosemite Park Rangers Jeff Webb and Dave Pope, flew from Yosemite Valley to assess the situation. Although the weather was favorable with light winds, impending darkness was an issue and Incident Commander, Yosemite Valley District Ranger Eric Gabriel, made the decision to attempt to extract the climber via short-haul. This is a technique where Park Rangers are suspended from a rope below the helicopter to remove the climber from the wall. Gabriel, who had consulted with the park's medical clinic, knew of the short window of time in which the thumb could successfully be reattached and felt the complex mission was worth pursuing. The helicopter hovered near the climbers and Park Rangers Webb and Pope were successfully short-hauled to the injured party. Once on the wall, the injured climber was transported back to El Capitan Meadow via helicopter. On the ground, the climber was transferred to another air medical helicopter to be flown out of the park. Webb remained with the partner overnight and was raised approximately 1,000 feet the following day to the summit using traditional rock-rescue technique. 
 
 
 
 Later that evening, the injured climber underwent surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center, Davies Campus, in San Francisco, where his thumb was successfully reattached. 
 
 
 
 "This was an incredibly technical and complex rescue mission with a lot of inherent risk. However, knowing that the thumb could be reattached, coupled with the confidence I have in my team, I made the decision to attempt this rescue. I was relieved, and thrilled, that this ended successfully and we were able to make a positive difference in this person's life," stated Gabriel. 
 
 
 
 Yosemite National Park Search and Rescue conducts hundreds of rescues each year. These range from lost hikers to complex technical rescues like the one described above. The efforts in this incident highlight the skill, dedication, and commitment to service that exemplifies the Search and Rescue team in Yosemite National Park. 
 
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 We hope your visit was informative and enjoyable. ||||| An Austrian climber at Yosemite National Park whose thumb was severed by a rope during a fall from El Capitan had the digit reattached after it dropped about 80 feet down the granite face and was recovered from a small ledge. 
 
 "The severed thumb miraculously fell approximately 80 feet and landed on a two foot by one foot ledge," park officials said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 The incident began Monday afternoon as two rock climbers, on their second day of traversing the famed monolith, were about 1,000 below the summit, officials said. ||||| FILE - This Jan. 14, 2015 file photo shows El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, Calif. Officials at Yosemite say a chunk of rock broke off El Capitan on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, along one of the world's... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This Jan. 14, 2015 file photo shows El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, Calif. Officials at Yosemite say a chunk of rock broke off El Capitan on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2017, along one of the world's... (Associated Press) 
 
 YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — A hunk of rock "the size of an apartment building" fell off the granite face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, killing one person and injuring another on a mountain at the height of climbing season, officials and witnesses said. 
 
 At least 30 climbers were on the wall at the time, but it was not clear if the victims were climbers or tourists, ranger Scott Gediman said Wednesday. 
 
 "It was witnessed by a lot of people," he said. 
 
 The injured person was taken to a hospital near the park. No names were immediately released. 
 
 El Capitan is one of the world's largest granite monoliths towering 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) above Yosemite Valley. 
 
 Several people made emergency calls, reporting the rock fall from the Waterfall route on the east buttress of El Capitan. 
 
 Officials didn't provide details on the size of the rock fall, but climbers posted pictures on social media from hundreds of feet up the wall showing billowing white dust moments after the crash. 
 
 "I saw a piece of rock, white granite the size of an apartment building, at least 100 feet by 100 feet, suddenly just come peeling off the wall with no warning," said Canadian climber Peter Zabrok, 57, who was scaling El Capitan and was above the rock fall. 
 
 Zabrok said he has climbed El Capitan dozens of times and has "never seen anything like this." 
 
 Mountaineers from around the world travel to the park in the Sierra Nevada to scale El Capitan's sheer face. Fall is one of the peak seasons because the days are long and the weather is warm. 
 
 Rock falls are common in Yosemite but seldom fatal. 
 
 Ken Yager, president and founder of the Yosemite Climbing Association, reviewed photos of the cliff face and debris field, estimating the relatively thin piece that broke off covered an area big enough to fit five houses. 
 
 "It cratered and sent stuff mushrooming out in all directions," said Yager, fearing that its victim was someone he knew from the climbing community. 
 
 Zabrok said he and friends were in the middle of a six-day climb of the Waterfall route on the right side of El Capitan when they saw it. 
 
 "Boy, I don't know how anybody could have survived that," he told KFSN-TV, the ABC affiliate in Fresno. 
 
 Peering down from his perch 2,000 feet (609 meters) up on the rock, Zabrok said he saw a rescuer lowered by helicopter and "I believe he grabbed one survivor." 
 
 He later saw rescuers moving someone on a litter. 
 
 "It was done at tremendous peril to the rescuers because there were three subsequent rockfalls that were all nearly as big and would have killed anybody at the base," he said. 
 
 Climber Kevin Jorgeson said he and climbing partner Tommy Caldwell witnessed a massive rock fall in the same area while they prepared for a trek that made them the first people to free-climb the Dawn Wall on El Capitan in 2015. 
 
 First they heard a rumble and then they saw a white cloud of dust. 
 
 "Yosemite is just a really active, wild place. It's always changing," Jorgeson said. "It doesn't make it any less tragic when someone gets in the way of that." 
 
 In 2013, a rock dislodged and severed the rope of a Montana climber who was scaling El Capitan. 
 
 Mason Robison, 38, fell about 230 feet to his death. It was Robison's gear digging into the side of the mountain that caused the rock to dislodge. 
 
 Yosemite remained open after Wednesday's rock fall, and other activities throughout the park weren't affected, rangers said.
– After a season of untimely deaths at Yosemite comes an amazing survival story—starring a thumb. A climber was scaling the park's El Capitan granite monolith Monday afternoon when he fell, causing a climbing rope to sever his right thumb and send it bouncing down the rock face, the Los Angeles Times reports. Luckily, the severed digit landed on a small ledge 80 feet below, where the climber's buddy retrieved it. Rangers suspended by rope from a helicopter managed to reach the climbers and get the injured man—along with his thumb—to the hospital in time for it to be reattached. "This was an incredibly technical and complex rescue mission with a lot of inherent risk," their commander says, according to the National Park Service website. "I was relieved, and thrilled, that this ended successfully."