Foster City native honored for Mount Whitney rescue efforts

Wu and Thomas were hiking the 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the continental United States, in early June and they aimed to make it to the top. Armed with mountaineering gear and plenty of layers, they set off on their journey at midnight.

It took them about six or seven hours to reach an elevation of 12,000 feet. At that point, most of the mountain is covered in snow and ice so they strapped on helmets, crampons and pulled out ice axes for the climb.

Before long, they arrived at the base of what’s called “the chute,” which Wu described as an icy half-pipe about 50 feet wide, up to 1,000 feet long and at a 40-degree angle — the equivalent of a black diamond ski slope. That was the most hazardous stretch of the trail, he said, and a slip would mean tumbling all the way to the bottom without an ice ax to break the fall.

Wu and Thomas were beginning to tire from all the hiking by then, and at that altitude, every breath only brings in about 75 percent of the oxygen one would take in at sea level. But they were determined to make it to the summit.

About halfway up “the chute,” they heard a scream from above.

The scream was followed by what looked like debris rolling down the mountain toward them; they thought it might be a boulder at first. As it moved closer, they realized it was a person tumbling uncontrollably and bouncing violently on the ice at roughly 30 mph. The person, a woman, was screaming ‘help me, someone stop me,’ and they were blood-curdling screams, Wu said.

There were about 10 climbers below Wu and Thomas and about 10 above them, but they were spread out with some 40 feet between each party.

As the woman continued flying down the mountain, limbs flailing in all directions, a man, who was standing about 50 feet up the mountain from Wu, attempted to save her. The man tackled her around the waist like a football player, but it didn’t stop her momentum, and then he and the woman were both tumbling down the mountain, intertwined and just seconds away from colliding with Wu.

‘Holding on for dear life’

Having seen what her momentum did to the man who tried to stop her, Wu moved several feet out of their path, dug his crampons and ax into the ice as deep as he could and braced for impact. As they approached, he reached out to them with his arm in an effort to slow them down, but they plowed right through Wu and continued tumbling down the mountain.

“They hit me in the right shoulder at full speed and both my crampons came loose from the ice. By sheer luck my ice ax stayed in and I was dangling by the 2-foot leash attached to it. I was holding on for dear life,” he said. “One moment I was looking up at them and then boom, I was looking straight down and I see them tumbling into the abyss and out of view, but we could hear them screaming.”

Before Wu and Thomas could process what happened, they heard another scream.

“Next thing you know we see [a third] person tumbling down the mountain. ... The third person was screaming and grunting every time she hit the ice, I remember it vividly,” he said. “She was somehow more subdued. The grunts were sad and you could feel the pain coming from them.”

Shortly after the third person fell, two men followed in pursuit. They glissaded, or intentionally slid down the chute at a high speed, in control, but just barely, Wu said. They were the boyfriends of the two girls who fell.

Wu and Thomas collected themselves and decided to hike down to the base of the chute to help.

“We could hear them screaming at the bottom and [Thomas] said we need to do something and I said yes ma’am,” he said.

On the way down, they saw hiking poles and other gear strewn about, and someone’s boot had come off with the crampon still attached.

“At one point I saw a hat and I grabbed it and saw the inside was filled with blood. At that point, I realized how serious the situation was,” he said.

Streaks of blood

There were intermittent streaks of blood down the mountain for hundreds of feet.

The first woman Wu got to was on the ground with her boyfriend standing over her. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her face covered in blood. She was spitting up blood and coughing. Her eyes were completely swollen like grapefruit, Wu said.

Wu was in shock himself, but his medical training kicked in. He and the boyfriend repositioned her so she was parallel to the slope and that seemed to help her breathe. Wu had no idea what her injuries might’ve been; she wasn’t lucid enough to effectively communicate how she felt and he couldn’t cut through her clothing because it was so cold and she was lying on ice.

Her lips had turned blue and she was shivering so Wu wrapped her in spare layers he brought and was able to warm her up. Wu then proceeded to examine her entire body, checking for a reaction to the pressure.

“Our main concern was brain swelling, but there wasn’t much we could’ve done to mitigate that,” he said.

He performed similar procedures on the other woman. Her right thigh had swollen to the size of a watermelon, Wu said, and he was worried her femur had snapped. Such a break could cut the femoral artery, which means bleeding out in seconds.

Wu elevated her legs and abdomen. After examining her, he was able to confirm the bone was intact, and he was also relieved when she was finally able to wiggle her toes.

The man who fell suffered only minor arm injures and managed to wrap his arm in a sling by the time Wu arrived.

Getting help

While Wu administered aid the victims, Thomas communicated via text message with two of their Coast Guard colleagues in San Francisco, describing the situation and their precise location and stressing that they were only accessible via helicopter. Time was of the essence.

That text message conversation took awhile as they barely had cellphone reception and just about every message had to be sent numerous times before it went through.

Wu and Thomas continued to keep the victims warm and stable for four hours until the helicopter arrived.

“It was a team effort no doubt,” Wu said. “The biggest contribution I did was the ABCs and keeping them warm, elevating them and basic medical things, just making sure they were stable.”

They later found out that one woman was in her early 20s and suffered severe head trauma. The other woman, who was in her mid-30s, sustained spinal, hip and leg injuries, possibly a broken hip and spine. Wu didn’t think she was paralyzed.

He heard that the first woman began tumbling after she slipped and the second woman attempted to glissade down the mountain to help, but lost control. The three fell at an approximate elevation of 13,000 feet and finally came to a stop at an elevation of about 12,500 feet.

‘Grateful to help’

After the helicopter took off, Wu and Thomas, exhausted and dehydrated, hiked the six or so additional hours it took to reach the base of the mountain.

They never made it to the top of Mount Whitney that day, but Wu said he looks forward to returning with more experience under his belt.

The next weekend, they hiked Mount Shasta.

Wu is currently studying public policy at Duke University, and the Coast Guard expedited his award ceremony so it could be held before he left town.

“It meant the world to Thomas and me to be recognized for our efforts,” Wu said. “We both agree that it was positive that we were there by sheer coincidence and both grateful to help with what we could. Hopefully we made the situation better.”

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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