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CNN Live Sunday
Interview With Sean Collinson
Aired January 12, 2003 - 18:11 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: After whiteout conditions and a night of uncertainty, five climbers lost on Oregon's Mount Hood are now safe and sound. Sean Collinson with Clackamas County Sheriff's Department joins us now by phone.
Sean, what can you tell us about this rescue?
SEAN COLLINSON, CLACKAMAS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Well, actually it started out yesterday at about 3:30 in the morning. These climbers went up and were expecting to return by 4:00, and due to the white out conditions they actually had to dig themselves a snow cave up near the summit of Mount Hood. And, they were lucky enough to have with them a cellular phone, a GPS unit, as well as a mountain locator unit, which is kind of a like an aircraft beacon.
And so, what happened is this morning they activated the beacon. We were able to receive the signal and able to talk with them briefly by cell phone when the connection was working and we sent rescue crews up and probably about two o'clock we located the climbers in their snow cave and we gave them some food, water, warmed them up and they're starting the descent now.
COOPER: What elevation were they at when they had dug the snow cave because I imagine if they were at a certain height you couldn't use helicopters to get to them.
COLLINSON: That's correct. As far as the actual elevation, I'm thinking it's over 10,000 feet. The white out conditions are still present today. They've been kind of coming and going and we couldn't even use an aircraft today. It's just a set of conditions that just wouldn't enable us to get an aircraft in the air. We're not going to put an aircraft in jeopardy.
COOPER: So what sort of -- you said you sent people up. Obviously you sent them by foot. How many people did you send? How long did it take them to get there?
COLLINSON: Well, actually part of the way they can actually be transported by something called the Snow Cat and that will run them up about halfway of the distance that they would need to travel, and then they had to walk up by foot from there and basically climb to these people that were trapped.
Now, in order to do that we actually had teams of about four to five people and six teams went up and were able to locate them and then we were using these teams to bring them down as well. COOPER: Well, thank God they had that equipment, those locator devices. Obviously I guess they were on some level experienced climbers. Sean Collinson with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Department I appreciate you joining us live on the phone.
We've actually got some sound and it just came in from some of the climbers who were in that second group who were rescued. Let's play that now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and we got most (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and some weather came in. So, we descended another route (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and then had (UNINTELLIGIBLE) because it got dark and the conditions were bad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was, can you describe the conditions? What was it like up there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, visibility was maybe ten feet at some points. You couldn't see what was snow and what was clouds sometimes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a little scary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a nice avalanche this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out, an avalanche? Can you tell us a little bit about that what was happening?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were both traversing the slope and I was just about to say that there was an avalanche (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and pretty good size slice cut away. It's probably 50 yards wide and ran for a couple hundred meters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So at that point were things not feeling very good or at any point were you -- I mean you must have been scared at some point?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not really.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you been in a situation like that before?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, reaction to be back down here, home sweet home, does it feel good?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mostly I'm just hungry. We didn't really plan on staying out overnight, so I think I'm going to go have a hot chocolate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I hope he at least said thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 12, 2003 - 18:11 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: After whiteout conditions and a night of uncertainty, five climbers lost on Oregon's Mount Hood are now safe and sound. Sean Collinson with Clackamas County Sheriff's Department joins us now by phone.
Sean, what can you tell us about this rescue?
SEAN COLLINSON, CLACKAMAS COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE: Well, actually it started out yesterday at about 3:30 in the morning. These climbers went up and were expecting to return by 4:00, and due to the white out conditions they actually had to dig themselves a snow cave up near the summit of Mount Hood. And, they were lucky enough to have with them a cellular phone, a GPS unit, as well as a mountain locator unit, which is kind of a like an aircraft beacon.
And so, what happened is this morning they activated the beacon. We were able to receive the signal and able to talk with them briefly by cell phone when the connection was working and we sent rescue crews up and probably about two o'clock we located the climbers in their snow cave and we gave them some food, water, warmed them up and they're starting the descent now.
COOPER: What elevation were they at when they had dug the snow cave because I imagine if they were at a certain height you couldn't use helicopters to get to them.
COLLINSON: That's correct. As far as the actual elevation, I'm thinking it's over 10,000 feet. The white out conditions are still present today. They've been kind of coming and going and we couldn't even use an aircraft today. It's just a set of conditions that just wouldn't enable us to get an aircraft in the air. We're not going to put an aircraft in jeopardy.
COOPER: So what sort of -- you said you sent people up. Obviously you sent them by foot. How many people did you send? How long did it take them to get there?
COLLINSON: Well, actually part of the way they can actually be transported by something called the Snow Cat and that will run them up about halfway of the distance that they would need to travel, and then they had to walk up by foot from there and basically climb to these people that were trapped.
Now, in order to do that we actually had teams of about four to five people and six teams went up and were able to locate them and then we were using these teams to bring them down as well. COOPER: Well, thank God they had that equipment, those locator devices. Obviously I guess they were on some level experienced climbers. Sean Collinson with the Clackamas County Sheriff's Department I appreciate you joining us live on the phone.
We've actually got some sound and it just came in from some of the climbers who were in that second group who were rescued. Let's play that now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and we got most (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and some weather came in. So, we descended another route (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and then had (UNINTELLIGIBLE) because it got dark and the conditions were bad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was, can you describe the conditions? What was it like up there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, visibility was maybe ten feet at some points. You couldn't see what was snow and what was clouds sometimes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you think?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a little scary.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a nice avalanche this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out, an avalanche? Can you tell us a little bit about that what was happening?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were both traversing the slope and I was just about to say that there was an avalanche (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and pretty good size slice cut away. It's probably 50 yards wide and ran for a couple hundred meters.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So at that point were things not feeling very good or at any point were you -- I mean you must have been scared at some point?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, not really.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Have you been in a situation like that before?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, reaction to be back down here, home sweet home, does it feel good?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mostly I'm just hungry. We didn't really plan on staying out overnight, so I think I'm going to go have a hot chocolate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: I hope he at least said thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
