Coast Guard Port Angeles video on this rescue: http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=1213152
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — A 24-year-old man who was part of a research team on Mount Olympus fell 200 feet to 300 feet Thursday and was airlifted to a Seattle hospital with an apparent broken arm and head injuries, an Olympic National Park spokeswoman said.
The man, James Andrew Menking, was a member of a three-person glacier research team from the University of Washington that was hiking to Blue Glacier, said Barb Maynes, the spokeswoman.
A nursing supervisor at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle said at 8 p.m. Thursday that Menking’s condition was serious.
Menking fell down an avalanche chute on Mount Olympus between Elk Lake and Glacier Meadows, Maynes said.
The fall was reported to the park at 2:15 p.m. The Coast Guard said it launched an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles and hoisted the man aboard at 5:08 p.m.
At the Port Angeles Coast Guard base, he was transferred to an Airlift Northwest helicopter at about 6 p.m. and then was flown to Harborview.
The research group, accompanied by a natural resources management employee of the park who was assisting the study, hiked from the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center to the Olympus Guard Station in the Hoh Valley, which is nine miles from the visitor center, on Wednesday, Maynes said.
They were close to reaching Blue Glacier on Thursday when Menking fell, she said.
“There are some very steep avalanche chutes going down the mountain,” Maynes said.
“He was crossing one of those and ended up falling.”
The rest of the research group returned Thursday to Olympus Guard Station, Maynes said.
She did not know Menking’s hometown or the names of the other team members.
A helicopter from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island also responded to the call for help, the Coast Guard said.
