Alaska
Alaska man unscathed after being pinned for hours by 700-pound boulder
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, thanks in part to his wife’s quick thinking and lots of luck.
Kell 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.
His second stroke of luck came when a sled dog tourism company that operates on the glacier overheard the 911 dispatch and offered up its helicopter to ferry rescuers to the scene, which was inaccessible to all-terrain vehicles.
Once rescuers arrived, it took seven men and inflatable airbags to lift the boulder off as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Morris, 61, said he realizes he is probably the luckiest man alive. “And luckier that I have such a great wife,” he said Thursday.
His wife, Jo Roop, is a retired Alaska State Trooper. They moved to Seward, about 120 miles south of Anchorage, from Idaho last fall when she took a job with the local police department.
On Saturday, they wanted to avoid the big crowds that converge on the Kenai Peninsula community during holidays and decided to hike near Godwin Glacier on an isolated and undeveloped trail behind a state prison, Seward Fire Chief Clinton Crites said.
Their trail was actually a rocky creek bed lined with large boulders deposited by the glacier.
Morris said he noticed dangerous boulders, some weighing up to 1,000 pounds, along the banks of the creek and avoided them the best he could, until he ran into an area he couldn’t pass.
“I was coming back and everything, the whole side slid out from under me,” he said.
He said things became a blur as he tumbled down the embankment about 20 feet, landing face down in the water.
Then he immediately felt the boulder hit his back in what Crites described as “basically an avalanche of boulders.”
The way 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, Crites said. But the massive rock still had him pinned, and Morris felt intense pain in his left leg and waited for his femur to snap.
“When it first happened, I was doubtful that there was going to be a good outcome,” Morris said.
His wife tried to free him for about 30 minutes, putting rocks under the boulder and trying to roll it off him, before she left to find a cell signal.
Amazingly, she only had to walk about 300 yards to connect with 911 and relied on her law enforcement experience to send exact GPS coordinates to dispatch.
A volunteer at the neighboring Bear Creek Fire Department heard the call while working at the sled dog tourism operation and diverted the helicopter used to ferry tourists to the scene. Ultimately, firefighters who couldn’t navigate their all-terrain vehicles over the boulder field jumped out of the helicopter.
“The patient was in a boulder field and the helicopter could only hover while firefighters had to jump from the helicopter to the ground as the helicopter could not land safely,” the Seward Fire Department said in a statement posted to Facebook.
By this time, Morris was hypothermic from the cold water running off the glacier, Crites said, and his wife was holding his head out of the water.
“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 Bear Creek Fire Department said it assisted the Seward Fire Department. “After dispatch one of our volunteers who was working with Seward Helicopter Tours contacted us and offered assistance by helicopter,” the Bear Creek Fire Department wrote on Facebook. “The pilot of the helicopter immediately jumped into action and helped haul gear and rescuers up to the patient aiding in quick response to the patient.”
The firefighters used two airbags normally reserved 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 said. “And seven guys were able to lift it enough to pull the victim out.”
An Alaska National Guard helicopter lifted them out of the creek bed with a rescue basket.
Morris spent two nights at the local hospital for observation but walked away unscathed.
“I fully anticipated a body recovery, not him walking away without a scratch on him,” Crites said.
Morris, who is now reflecting on his ordeal at home, acknowledged it might have been a little wake-up call to stop doing things like this at his age.
“I was very lucky. God was looking out for me,” he said.
When he and his wife go hiking this weekend, they are going to stick to established trails.
“We’re going to stop the trailblazing,” he said.
“We are grateful we could support our first responders and help someone in need. So glad this story had a positive ending,” Seward Helicopter Tours wrote on Facebook.
Alaska
ICE: Alaska state attorney arrested by immigration officials, held in Tacoma detention center
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Shucheng “Charlie” Yang, 32, a Chinese national and attorney with the Alaska Department of Law, on July 10 in Anchorage, according to an ICE spokesperson.
ICE said Yang violated the terms of his admission and is a “deportable alien.”
He is currently being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, pending immigration proceedings.
Yang pled no contest to a speeding ticket he was cited for on May 22. There are no other charges against him listed in the Alaska court system.
Yang is the most recent person in Alaska to be taken into ICE custody at the Tacoma processing center; a Mexican woman living in Soldotna was deported along with her three children in February.
His arrest also comes days after a Colombian man was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer earlier this week in Maine, fueling a new wave of protests against perceived ICE brutality.
State outlines hiring process
The Alaska Department of Administration responded to general questions about verifying employment eligibility for all full-time hires and said the state requires applicants to self-disclose their employment eligibility during the application process.
“The State of Alaska hires individuals who have the legal right to work in the United States,” Policy Advisor Kate Sheehan said. “This employment eligibility is confirmed through the federally mandated I-9 verification process.”
Yang is listed as Department of Law civil attorney on the State of Alaska employee directory.
Agencies decline to comment on Yang
Both the Alaska Department of Law and the Office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy declined to address Yang’s employment status or arrest.
“As a practice, the Department of Law does not provide comments on personnel issues,” Information Officer Sam Curtis said.
“We do not comment on personnel issues,” Deputy Press Secretary Grant Robinson said.
Alaska’s News Source is reaching out to Yang through multiple channels while he remains detained in Tacoma.
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The National Science Foundation has selected the University of Alaska Fairbanks to be the site of a new critical minerals research program, making it one of 12 new technology innovation centers across the nation that received federal funding, according to Yereth Rosen with the Alaska Beacon.
The new Critical Minerals Accelerator Engine in Alaska will receive $15 million in funding for two years and up to $160 million over 10 years, the university said on Tuesday.
The organization will be located at and led by UAF’s Geophysical Institute and will work with more than 40 partners, said Steve Masterman, the university faculty member who helped lead the application for the award. Partners include private companies, Native corporations, nonprofits, other universities and other entities, said Masterman, who formerly served as Alaska’s state geologist.
UAF already conducts scientific research into minerals considered critical to the nation’s economy through its Critical Minerals Collaborative. That program is more scientific and academic-focused, said Masterman, who is its deputy director.
In contrast, the Critical Minerals Accelerator Engine will be focused on putting research to use, determining ways to commercialize resources, addressing supply needs, workforce development and other issues important to the critical minerals industry.
Though the scientific research already conducted at UAF will be helpful, the accelerator idea is industry-focused, Masterman said.
“This is quite different because it’s an economic development project,” he said.
Alaska is rich in resources considered critical minerals. The state has 56 of the 60 minerals classified by the U.S. Geological Survey as critical to the nation’s economy, UAF said in its statement.
In addition to the Alaska award, the NSF on Tuesday announced its awards for other innovation engines in different parts of the nation. The sites have different primary purposes, such as disaster prevention and mitigation, robotics development and development of advanced information technologies.
The Alaska innovation engine will be led by Lee Ann Munk, a faculty member at the Geophysical Institute and a geosciences professor at UAF’s College of Natural Science and Mathematics. Munk is currently director of the Critical Minerals Collaborative at UAF.
“Our NSF Engine is built on the simple but ambitious idea that Alaska can lead the nation not only with the abundance of its critical mineral resources, but also in how we innovate, develop and deploy the technologies needed to produce them responsibly,” Munk said in a statement released by the university.
“By bringing together researchers, Alaska Native organizations, industry, workforce partners, state and federal agencies, national laboratories and communities, we are creating an engine that accelerates discovery into action,” she said.
Editor’s note: This story was republished with permission from the Alaska Beacon.
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