PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – The first thing that Braton Jurasevich noticed as he clambered down Mount Hood toward his fallen fellow mountain climber was the blood – a lot of it.
The critically injured climber, later be identified as Miha Sumi, was sprawled with his feet above his head on icy slope about 10,300 feet (3,140 meters) up the mountain.
Moments before, Sumi had slipped while descending from the summit and plummeted head over heels down a snowfield on Oregon’s tallest peak – his fall witnessed by nearly a half-dozen other climbers who called 911 as they watched helplessly.
Sumi would be pronounced dead at a Portland hospital later Tuesday after being airlifted off the slope, but when Jurasevich arrived, he was still alive.
“I’m the only one with eyes on the individual right now and I’m still 200 feet above the climber. He is not moving. I’m working my way down on a bad spot. I came across blood. There’s a big blood trail,” he tells the 911 dispatcher at the beginning of a call released by the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office late Wednesday.