An Alaska man who was pinned facedown in an icy creek by a 700-pound boulder for three hours survived the ordeal with only minor injuries.
Kell Morris, 61, said he is one of the luckiest men alive, thanks in part to his wife’s quick thinking and lots of luck.
“And luckier that I have such a great wife,” Morris told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
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. The couple decided to hike on the remote trail to avoid the crowd of tourists that visit the Kenai Peninsula during Memorial Day weekend.
This June 4, 2023, photo shows Kell Morris, left, and his wife Jo Roop, in Sandpoint, Idaho.
Kell Morris via AP
He said his second stroke of luck came when a sled dog tourism company that operates on the glacier overheard the 911 dispatch and offered to send its helicopter to the scene where Morris was trapped, which was inaccessible to all-terrain vehicles.
It took seven men and inflatable airbags to lift the boulder off Morris as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Morris’ wife, Jo Roop, a retired Alaska State Trooper, said they moved to Seward from Idaho last fall when she took a job with the local police department.
The couple decided to hike near Godwin Glacier on an isolated and undeveloped trail behind a state prison. The trail had a rocky creek bed lined with large boulders deposited by the glacier.
Morris said he noticed dangerous boulders along the banks of the creek and tried to avoid them, until he ran into an area he couldn’t pass.
That’s when a 700-pound boulder came tumbling down and pinned him in the creek, similar to the James Franco biographical film, 127 Hours, where a mountain climber becomes trapped under a boulder while canyoneering alone in Utah.
“I was coming back and everything, the whole side slid out from under me,” Morris said, noting that that’s when he felt the boulder hit his back.
Seward Fire Chief Clinton Crites described it as “basically an avalanche of boulders.”
When 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, according to Crites. But the one massive rock still had him pinned and Morris felt pain in his left leg and said he was waiting for his femur to snap.
“When it first happened, I was doubtful that there was going to be a good outcome,” Morris said.
Roop tried to free him for about 30 minutes by putting rocks under the boulder and trying to roll it off him before she left him to go and find a phone signal to call for help.
She walked nearly 300 metres to connect with 911 and used her law enforcement experience to send the exact GPS co-ordinates to dispatch to help save her husband.
After the Bear Creek Fire Department heard the call, it diverted the helicopter and firefighters jumped out to help move the boulder.
By the time the firefighters arrived, Morris was hypothermic from the cold water running off the glacier, Crites said.
“I think if we hadn’t had that private helicopter assist us, it would have taken us at least another 45 minutes to get to him, and I’m not sure he had that much time,” Crites said.
The firefighters used ropes, “brute force” and two airbags that are normally used to extract people from wrecked vehicles to slightly lift the boulder.
“But then it just became an all-hands brute force of ‘one, two, three, push,’” Crites shared. “And seven guys were able to lift it enough to pull the victim out.”
“Once out of the water, the crew re-warmed the patient, and he became more alert, and his vitals improved. It was determined there was not an effective and safe manner to bring the patient down the canyon,” according to the Seward Fire Department.
“The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center through the Alaska State Troopers was contacted for assistance. The AKRCC dispatched the 176th Wing Air National Guard Pararescue Jumpers to hoist the patient out of the canyon and transfer him to the awaiting ambulance.”
An Alaska National Guard helicopter lifted them out of the creek bed with a rescue blanket and Morris spent two nights at Seward Providence Hospital for observation before walking away unscathed.
“I fully anticipated a body recovery, not him walking away without a scratch on him,” Crites said.
“I was very lucky. God was looking out for me,” Morris said.
The Seward Fire Department said there is “no doubt that without the help from Seward Helicopter tours this incident could have had a much different and potentially fatal outcome.”
“It is community members and businesses that we work so well with that make our jobs easier and more productive. We send a huge thanks to Seward Helicopter Tours, Pilot Neo Martinson & Sam Paperman, Seward Fire and Bear Creek Fire responders, AK State Troopers, AKRCC, the 176th Air Wing, and SVAC for making this a successful rescue,” the fire department added in its news release.
Morris said that when he goes hiking with his wife this weekend, they will stick to authorized trails.
“We’re going to stop the trailblazing,” he said.
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A similar situation took place in December 2023, when a hiker became trapped under a large boulder in the Inyo Mountains in California, located between Sequoia and Death Valley national parks.
Inyo County Search & Rescue, a volunteer organization that works in tandem with the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office, said it was alerted about the trapped hiker on the afternoon of Dec. 5.
The team “arrived at the hiker’s location well after dark,” and found the hiker “in great pain with his left leg pinned beneath a large boulder on a steep hillside,” according to a Facebook post.
After a hiker became trapped under a large boulder in the Inyo Mountains, rescuers worked through the night to free him.
Inyo County Search & Rescue
Rescuers estimated that the boulder weighed somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 pounds.
With “limited resources” to lift the heavy boulder, rescuers fashioned a system of ropes and pulleys and used leverage to shift the rock enough to free the trapped hiker.
The hiker suffered serious injuries.
— With files from Global News and The Associated Press