2023-08-14 07:00:00
Wanted to avoid tourist photo: Teenager survives 30-meter fall at the Grand Canyon
August 14, 2023, 12:37 p.m. Listen to article
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A 13-year-old from the USA goes on a trip to the Grand Canyon with his mother. As he tries to make room on site so as not to walk into another tour group’s photo, he slips and falls. He falls almost 30 meters – and survives.
What begins as a hiking trip almost ends in tragedy for the Kauffman family from the US state of North Dakota. 13-year-old Wyatt was hiking with his mother in the Grand Canyon when he slipped off a cliff on the Bright Angel Point Trail, a hiking trail on the northern edge of the national park, and fell almost 30 meters into a gorge. Miraculously, the boy survives the accident and now explains how it happened.
“I was standing on a ledge and wanted to get out of the way so other people could take a photo,” Wyatt says in one Interview with the US broadcaster KPNX. “I crouched down and held on to a rock, but only with one hand.” He adds: “I didn’t have a particularly good grip. Somehow I got pushed back, lost my footing and started falling.”
Ruptured spleen, concussion, broken vertebrae
The Grand Canyon rescue team is immediately alerted, but the search for the victim initially turns out to be more difficult than hoped. Because Wyatt fell into a narrow and steep ravine, rescue by helicopter is not possible. Instead, the emergency services have to abseil down the cliff and get the boy out of the ravine in a basket. The action lasts two hours. “Team members performed a technical rope rescue from a height and were able to get him out safely,” the national park said in a statement, according to US broadcaster >.
“I just remember waking up and being in the back of an ambulance and a helicopter. Then I was taken on a plane to the hospital,” said Wyatt Kauffman, who comes from the small town of Casselton in eastern North Dakota. Wyatt is eventually treated at a pediatric trauma center in Las Vegas with nine broken vertebrae, a ruptured spleen, a collapsed lung, a concussion, a broken hand and a dislocated finger.
“Lucky we don’t bring him home in a crate”
When he learns of his son’s fall and rescue, Brian Kauffman, the boy’s father, is at home in North Dakota. He tells KPNX that Wyatt has now been released from the hospital and is on his way back to Casselton with his mother. In the interview about the incident, Brian Kauffman thanks the rescue workers and emphasizes: “We are lucky that we brought our child home in a car in the front seat and not in a box.”
On average, Grand Canyon search and rescue teams are called to more than 300 missions annually, ranging from heat illnesses to crashes like the one Wyatt Kauffman survived. The park service notes that while Bright Angel Point Trail is very popular and offers beautiful views, it is also narrow and surprisingly steep. Visitors are reminded to always maintain a safe distance of around two meters from the edge of the rock.
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