Alaska man survives being pinned face-down in a glacier creek by a massive boulder for 3 hours
CBC
An Alaska man who was pinned face-down in an icy creek by a 318-kilogram boulder for three hours survived the ordeal with no major injuries, thanks in part to his wife's quick thinking and lots of luck.
Kell Morris' wife held his head above water to prevent him from drowning while waiting for rescuers to arrive after Morris was pinned by the boulder, which crashed onto him during a hike near a remote glacier south of Anchorage.
His second stroke of luck came when a sled dog tourism company that operates on the glacier overheard the 911 dispatch and offered up its helicopter to ferry rescuers to the scene, which was inaccessible to all-terrain vehicles.
Once rescuers arrived, it took seven men and inflatable air bags to lift the boulder off as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Morris, 61, said he realizes he is probably the luckiest man alive. "And luckier that I have such a great wife," he said Thursday.
His wife, Jo Roop, is a retired Alaska State Trooper. They moved to Seward, about 193 kilometers south of Anchorage, from Idaho last fall when she took a job with the local police department.
Last Saturday, they wanted to avoid the big crowds that converge on the Kenai Peninsula community during holidays and decided to hike near Godwin Glacier on an isolated and undeveloped trail behind a state prison, Seward Fire Chief Clinton Crites said.
Their trail was actually a rocky creek bed lined with large boulders deposited by the glacier.
Morris said he noticed dangerous boulders, some weighing up to 454 kilograms, along the banks of the creek and avoided them the best he could, until he ran into an area he couldn't pass.
"I was coming back and everything, the whole side, slid out from under me," he said.
He said things became a blur as he tumbled down the embankment about six metres, landing face-down in the water.
Then he felt the boulder hit his back.
Crites described it as "basically an avalanche of boulders."
The way Morris landed, there were rocks under him, in between his legs and around him that caught the weight of the boulder, preventing him from being crushed, Crites said. But the massive rock still had him pinned, and Morris felt intense pain in his left leg and waited for his femur to snap.
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