Heroes of the Week: Taos, New Mexico County Fire and EMS rescued from Taos Rio Grande Gorge

This week's heroes are the Fire and EMS crews from Taos, New Mexico, when they had to drop a rope line into a gorge to rescue a trapped pregnant woman who was hiking. The Rio Grande Gorge, located just 10 miles northwest of Taos, New Mexico, is a dramatic 50-mile-long, 800-foot-deep canyon carved by volcanic activity and the Rio Grande.  

(Photo: Rio Grande River Gorge. Credit:  newmexicoriveradventures.com/)

Woman, 28 weeks pregnant, rescued from Taos Rio Grande Gorge 

By Geoffrey Plant The Taos News

TAOS — Taos County Fire and EMS rescued an injured pregnant woman from a trail in the Rio Grande Gorge on Saturday, when drought conditions in part determined the nature of the rescue.

“What we would be able to do in a normal year is we would be able to float her down in a raft — that would be our easiest option,” said James Hampton, the Taos County fire marshal. “But because the water’s so low this year, we can’t float them down because the raft just basically bottoms out on the river and they have to basically carry the raft the whole way.”

(Photo of the Taos County EMS and Firefighters. Credit: Wesley Foote)

The fastest way for a rescuer to reach her, he said, “was to go over the edge and send a rescuer down on a rope.”

After the rescuer determined the woman had an injured leg and was unable to walk, he said, they made a call: “We’re going to have to bring her up over the side.”

Hampton said the injured woman was on a trail that would have created dangers for anyone trying to carry her out.

The rescue, from dispatch to ambulance, took about six hours. The woman was then taken to Holy Cross Medical Center.

(Video of the Rescue as filmed by Wesley Foote. Taos County Fire and EMS rescued a woman, 28 weeks pregnant, from the Rio Grande Gorge July 4, according to officials, who emphasized the nature of the rescue was partly determined by drought.  SOURCE) 

Officials did not release the name of the woman, who reportedly had been hiking to or from hot springs in the area when she suffered an injury.

Deputy Taos County EMS Director David Varela said the woman, who was 28 weeks pregnant, was expected to make a full recovery.

Hampton said the woman was located by her cellphone’s GPS signal in the gorge, a 600-foot-deep crack in the Earth’s surface that defines the Taos Plateau. Cellphone service is poor or nonexistent in the gorge.

“They had an SOS on their iPhone, and when they sent that, it sent to the Apple Center and then they forwarded that information over,” Hampton said.

“One thing I want to highlight,” he added, “is that the people that were with her, and the injured person, they made the absolute right call: As soon as they recognized they weren’t going to be able to get her out of there, they called 911 immediately.”

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This story first appeared in The Taos News, a sister publication of The Santa Fe New Mexican.