{"id":53489,"date":"2020-06-03T17:58:32","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T23:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/78-year-old-hiker-rescued-after-falling-20-feet-in-backcountry\/"},"modified":"2020-06-03T23:58:32","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T23:58:32","slug":"78-year-old-hiker-rescued-after-falling-20-feet-in-backcountry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/78-year-old-hiker-rescued-after-falling-20-feet-in-backcountry\/","title":{"rendered":"78-year-old hiker rescued after falling 20 feet in backcountry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3bb67827-78ad-49a6-870c-1ef3e84cad3c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Emergency responders successfully rescued a 78-year-old man Wednesday after he fell 20 feet while hiking in the backcountry off U.S. Highway 550 in San Juan County.<\/p>\n<p>San Juan County Search and Rescue led the response with assistance from Mercy Regional Medical Center\u2019s Care Flight helicopter and La Plata County Search and Rescue. The Care Flight team stabilized the man, who possibly had a broken leg and symptoms of shock, according to initial reports, before transporting him to Mercy early Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the efforts of these wonderfully dedicated people, this man was brought out safely, and he\u2019s getting the medical attention that he needs,\u201d said Steve Lowrence, undersheriff with the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office, which oversees the county\u2019s search and rescue team. Lowrence did not release the man\u2019s name because of health privacy law.<\/p>\n<p>The man was about 2.5 miles into the backcountry on Cascade Creek Trail, according to GPS coordinates provided by the hikers. Lowrence said those coordinates were integral to the emergency response teams\u2019 successful rescue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all know that accidents happen. Sometimes, things just go wrong. We always encourage people to follow their basic safety rules,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>While Care Flight flew from Durango, ground crews responded as a backup, in case the landing zone wasn\u2019t viable or weather prevented the helicopter from landing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of these search or rescue people are voluntary. The wonderful, caring, selfless acts of these people \u2013 it\u2019s times like this where, where they really show their value,\u201d Lowrence said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:smullane@durangoherald.com\">smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>stabilized, flown to Mercy Regional Medical Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1152,28,658,1807,68,29,976,199],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-emergency-incident","tag-headlines","tag-hiking","tag-la-plata-county-search-and-rescue","tag-mercy-regional-medical-center","tag-newsletter","tag-outdoor-recreation","tag-san-juan-national-forest"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53489","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=53489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53489"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}