A 13-year-old boy plummeted 100 feet from the edge of the Grand Canyon after losing his footing – and has lived to tell the tale.
Wyatt Kauffman was walking on the Bright Angel Point trail with his mother on Tuesday when he slipped and fell from the North Rim of the Arizona landmark.
Rescue teams took two hours to rescue him before he was airlifted to a Las Vegas hospital.
He received treatment for nine broken vertebrae, a ruptured spleen, a collapsed lung, concussion and a broken hand and dislocated finger.
Wyatt told Phoenix TV station KPNX: ‘I was up on the ledge and was moving out of the way so other people could take a picture.
‘I squatted down and was holding on to a rock. I only had one hand on it.
‘It wasn’t that good of a grip. It was kind of pushing me back. I lost my grip and started to fall back.’
His father Brian Kauffman was in the family’s home state of North Dakota when heheard the news about the fall and rescue.
He said: ‘We’re extremely grateful for the work of everyone. Two hours is an eternity in a situation like that.’
Meghan Smith, a preventive search and rescue supervisor for the US National Park Service, said: ‘I can say with great confidence that they put to use advanced medical skills in an austere environment that are rarely executed in most other places.
‘It’s clear that their training and hard work paid off, leading to a smooth, timely operation that will no doubt lead to better outcomes for this patient.’
The services advises walkers to keep at least six feet away from the edge when there is no fence or railing.
Wyatt was discharged from hospital yesterday, Mr Kauffman said, and he and his mother were driving back to the town of Casselton where they live.
They expect to arrive back home on Tuesday.
Mr Kauffman told KPNX: ‘We’re just lucky we’re bringing our kid home in a car in the front seat instead of in a box.’
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