Rescue at Iceberg Lake

Barbara Lawlor

Gilpin County

On Thursday, June 28, 2016 around 11:30 a.m., Timberline Fire Protection District firefighters responded to a report of a hiker who was having a heart attack at 11,000 feet. They staged at the East Portal trailhead and hiked up near Iceberg Lake, which is just below the Continental Divide. TFPD firefighters located the patient, and working with Alpine Rescue, carried him across some brutal rocky terrain to a helicopter landing zone at 11,000 ft by Clayton Lake.

TPFD was assisted by the Gilpin County Sheriff's Office, and Rocky Mountain Rescue was standing by to help if they couldn't get a helicopter to land that high.

At first, the helicopter pilot refused to fly because the landing zone was at 11,000 feet and the rescue team asked for a National Guard chopper. Then the right pilot with the right aircraft from Flight For Life agreed to make the rescue.

"We were glad, as the walk out would have been very strenuous for our patient, and potentially fatal," says TFPD firefighter Rob Savoye.

The patient was originally found, with assistance by his hiking partners, at 11, 438 feet.

" Together Alpine and Timberline responders carried the patient across multiple rock fields, requiring ropes to belay the litter. After about an hour of strenuous work, we arrived at the meadow a minute behind the helicopter landing."

Those who participated in the high altitude rescue included two Timberline and Gilpin EMS teams as well as alpine rescue.