A rescue in Glacier

Thirty feet below a trail in Glacier National Park lay two people who had been mauled by a grizzly bear and then plunged down a cliff to a narrow rock ledge Thursday morning. Their rescue would be a textbook definition of courage and skill.

The pair, reportedly a father and daughter from San Diego, apparently surprised the sow with two cubs on a blind corner on the Grinnell Glacier Trail near Thunderbird Falls. It reportedly focused first on the teenage girl, inflicting wounds on her face and shoulder while she struggled to use pepper spray. Then it turned to her companion - a man in his 40s.

By the time the encounter ended, the man was battered, his scalp chewed off, with injuries that first were thought to be critical.

The bear either swatted the pair off the trail or they rolled off on their own to escape. They landed on a small outcropping, suspended above another 50-foot drop.

Rescuing them wouldn't be easy.

Kalispell Regional Medical Center had been bustling all day with injuries and medical crises. Its rescue helicopter, ALERT, was in Browning when Glacier National Park officials called for help.

Pilot Ken Justus has been flying for ALERT for two years. He's never been to a bear mauling, and though he's trained, he's never been called to fly a short-haul rescue. That was about to change.

Short-haul rescues are designed for exactly the kind of plight the mauling victims were in. The idea is to fly the helicopter into a tight space, dangling a paramedic below to pluck up the patient and fly to a safe zone to load her or him into the helicopter. It is rescue flying at its most skilled.

"It puts you through the ropes," Justus said.

He flew back from Browning to the hospital to pick up gear. Carrying flight nurse Travis Willcut, paramedic Jerry Anderson, and the special equipment that could help save two people's lives, Justus flew to the park to scout out the situation.

"It looked fine. It was a ledge on a cliff," he said.

He had to make sure there was enough space for his rotors to clear the rock face. With 150 feet of Kevlar logging line below it, the helicopter could rise far enough away from the cliff to give him room.

Justus flew to a landing pad at an area called Keyhole, close to Many Glacier Lodge. There, Anderson put on a backpack full of medical gear and harnessed himself onto the rope beneath the helicopter.

Justus lifted off with Anderson dangling below for a three- or four-mile flight back to the cliff. He had to go slowly so Anderson wouldn't spin or swing beneath the helicopter. At speeds of more than 40 mph, it's hard for the paramedics to breathe or see, he said.

Back over the ledge, Justus had to ease Anderson into position, the sheer rock next to him a treacherous boundary.

"I was worried about making a third patient" out of Anderson, Justus said. "It's quite challenging."

Even a tremble in his hand on the controls would communicate itself all the way down the rope.

It was, fortunately, a clear day with little wind to complicate the rescue.

Like an air surgeon, Justus delicately cut through the space and lowered Anderson to the ledge. Anderson unhooked himself from the helicopter, assessed the man's grave condition and prepared him to be airlifted off of the ledge. That took 15 or 20 minutes, Justus said. All the while, Justus hovered nearby.

With Anderson strapped to his bundled patient on a small stretcher at the paramedic's chest level, Justus gently flew them back to Keyhole, where the injured man was temporarily loaded into an ambulance. Willcut had a stable place there to begin working on the man, while the helicopter crew returned to the ledge to rescue the girl in the same manner.

Willcut said park rangers "did a fantastic job," getting to the pair before ALERT arrived. Some had lowered themselves down to the ledge to begin stabilizing the patients before the helicopter could help.

The helicopter then loaded the man for the 22-minute flight to the hospital and returned for the girl.

"It was such an amazing feat," said Allison Meilicke, director of the emergency department. "He did the most miraculous job," she said of Justus.

KOFI-AM radio newsman George Ostrom and his camera were on the Grinnell Glacier Trail on Thursday during the incident. He captured some of the rescue on film, marveling at how well it worked.

"It was very professional and very courageous," he said.

Meanwhile, staff in the emergency room was geared up to care for the two victims.

"The fervor in the emergency room goes way up" during a bear mauling, said Dr. Scott Rundle. Medically, though, "To me, it's another trauma" incident.

The man, he said was "badly injured, but stable."

Because of patient confidentiality laws, health-care providers cannot provide details about patients' care or injuries.

Rundle could say that "most people would die from a 30-foot fall," even without the mauling injuries.

"He was, all in all, very lucky," Rundle said.

Meilicke praised the ALERT crew and hospital staff.

"They were excellent," she said.

The man was transferred Thursday to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was said to be in serious condition Friday.

The girl remained Friday at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Glacier National Park officials refused to release the names of the victims.