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Injured kayaker rescued at Vallecito Creek

A kayaker with an injured leg was rescued from Vallecito Creek on Friday night at about 8:30 p.m.

“He’s part of an elite group of kayakers,” said Chief Bruce Evans of Upper Pine Fire Protection District, which collaborated with La Plata County Search and Rescue to pull the man up from the creek. “He got caught in the Trash Can area, and he swam out. When he tried to climb up, he fell, and that’s when he injured his leg pretty seriously.”

Upper Pine got the call at about 2:15 p.m., Evans said, coincidentally while the district was celebrating its two emergency medical services personnel of the year with County Commissioner Julie Westendorff. She hiked up the trail to watch them handle the rescue.

“Search and rescue had to set a complex technical rigging to haul him out of the gorge,” Evans said. “They had prepared for this, setting up anchor sites in the area, and everything went essentially flawlessly.”

There were 21 people on scene from the two agencies, Evans said, including a physician with Search and Rescue and two paramedics, who stabilized the kayaker, who is a Durango resident, before bringing him out. They recovered the kayak as well.

“It couldn’t have been orchestrated more as a symphony,” Evans said.

shane@durangoherald.com



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