Teen who fell from Grand Canyon ledge says he was ‘inches away from death’
As he left the hospital and headed for home in North Dakota, a 13-year-old boy who fell 100ft from a ledge at the Grand Canyon said he had been “inches away from death”.
“I almost died,” Wyatt Kauffman told ABC’s Good Morning America, when asked to reflect on the fall that left him with a spinal fracture and other injuries. “I want to thank everybody that helped me be able to be alive.”
Wyatt spent about four days in hospital after his fall, which happened on a visit to the Grand Canyon’s north rim in Arizona, with his mother. Though discharged, his condition meant he could not fly. He and his mom therefore set off to drive to Casselton, North Dakota, scheduled to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday, KPHO, an Arizona news station, reported.
Brian Kauffman, Wyatt’s father, said: “I’m thankful he’s coming home in the front seat of the car instead of a [coffin] in the back. Wyatt is doing remarkably well. Wyatt is going to make a full and complete recovery from this.”
As he told it, Wyatt was using his phone and camera to take pictures of the views from the “very top” of the Bright Angel Point trail, a popular tourist spot that is markedly steep and narrow.
“It’s flat out there – you can see the entire canyon,” Wyatt told ABC. “It is beautiful up there.”
He squatted and held on to a rock so other people could take a picture, he told the Phoenix news outlet KPNX.
But he was holding on with just one hand.
“I kind of stood up – I lost my grip, and that’s when I started to fall back,” Wyatt told ABC. “I cannot remember anything past that point. I just remember somewhat waking up and being in the back of an ambulance, and a helicopter, and then the plane” to the hospital.
Rescue crews spent two hours using ropes and a Stokes basket to retrieve Wyatt. He was eventually flown to a pediatric trauma center in Las Vegas, to be treated for nine broken vertebrae, a ruptured spleen and a collapsed lung. He was also treated for a concussion, a broken hand and a dislocated finger.
Doctors said a complete recovery would take a long time. But in little more than half a week, Wyatt was able to walk on his own.
“I’m beyond fortunate – I’m beyond thankful for everybody involved in his rescue and his medical care,” Brian Kauffman said to KPHO, adding that his message to other parents was: “I don’t care how old your kid is. Keep an eye on them. Life happens in the blink of an eye.”
More than 80 people have fallen over the edge of the Grand Canyon in the last decade, authorities said. A year ago, also in the area of Bright Angel Point trail, a 44-year-old man died after falling about 200ft.
“It only takes one moment of inattentiveness or one slip to potentially fall up to several hundreds of feet,” said Matthew Krupp, a Grand Canyon national park ranger and paramedic.