{"id":38881,"date":"2022-08-16T21:45:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T03:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/authorities-identify-colorado-man-who-fell-to-death-in-chicago-basin\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:47:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:47:06","slug":"authorities-identify-colorado-man-who-fell-to-death-in-chicago-basin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/authorities-identify-colorado-man-who-fell-to-death-in-chicago-basin\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorities identify Colorado man who fell to death in Chicago Basin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"(The
(The Journal file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Colorado man died Monday after falling about 30 feet while descending Windom Peak in the Chicago Basin area in the Weminuche Wilderness north of Durango.<\/p>\n

The victim was identified as Douglas Christensen, 53, of Castle Pines, according to a news release issued Tuesday by La Plata County government.<\/p>\n

Christensen was a pediatric cardiologist who has authored several papers and given lectures about pediatric cardiology, according to a profile posted on Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Christensen enjoys spending time with his wife and four children, hiking 14ers, backpacking, camping, mountain biking, tennis, skiing and reading,\u201d according to his profile.<\/p>\n

The mishap was first reported to law enforcement about noon or 12:15 p.m. Monday, said Lt. Pat Downs, with the La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office. The fall occurred on the 14,093-foot Windom Peak, which is the highest point in La Plata County.<\/p>\n

A climbing companion and a passerby attempted CPR, but those efforts were unsuccessful, according to the release.<\/p>\n

Storms prevented an aerial recovery Monday, but an eight-person crew with La Plata County Search and Rescue flew in via a Flight for Life helicopter at 7 a.m. Tuesday. The crew climbed to the site of Christensen\u2019s body and prepared it for transport. A helicopter from Montrose HeliTack then performed a long-line extraction from the site, according to the release.<\/p>\n

No cause of death has been given pending an autopsy scheduled for Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office sent an investigator to the site of the fall, which is standard procedure as part of a death investigation, said Lt. Chris Burke, spokesman with the agency.<\/p>\n

No foul play is suspected, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime there\u2019s a death, whether it\u2019s an unintended death or a death involving an accident, investigators usually get sent out to determine what the actual cause was: if it was accidental, if there was anybody else involved, things of that nature,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time-consuming, but that\u2019s the job of the investigator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

County Search and Rescue spent parts of Monday and Tuesday recovering victim\u2019s body<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2748,255,28,658,1807,1924],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-climbing","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-hiking","tag-la-plata-county-search-and-rescue","tag-weminuche-wilderness"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84157,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38881\/revisions\/84157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38881"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}