A Yavapai County deputy is being hailed for his heroic actions and providing life-saving care to a hiker.
According to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (YCSO), on June 7, 2023, at approximately 1:38 pm, deputies responded to a call of a woman screaming for help on a trail in Granite Dells Flume Trail near Watson Lake. Initially dispatchers received a call with a female, but the line dropped. However, using coordinates from the call, the 911 dispatchers were able to route YCSO deputies to the location.
While deputies were on their way to the scene, the dispatchers were able to reconnect the call, where the woman, age 37 years old from Phoenix, stated she was hiking and had fallen about six feet and broke her leg and was bleeding a lot.
A YCSO deputy who was familiar with the area was able to respond first and began to hike towards the GPS coordinates provided by 911, through thick brush and debris before crossing knee high waters in Granite Creek. After crossing the creek, he climbed up the boulders to get to the Flume Trail and hiked approximately 1/4 mile to the 911 coordinates where he located the hiker below a large boulder and partially in the creek.
The woman was bleeding excessively and had a serious compound fracture to her lower right leg, so the deputy applied a tourniquet to keep her from losing too much blood while waiting for Fire and Medical personnel to arrive. To assist the woman with fatigue, the deputy crawled into the water and used his knee to apply upward pressure to relieve her stress and continued to talk to her to prevent her from passing out.
After the bleeding subsided to a slow trickle, the deputy explained to the hiker that he had no cell phone or radio services so he would need to get higher ground to get additional help to her faster. According to the incident report the deputy stated:
“I climbed back to the trail and was able to radio my Sergeant and have him relay that we needed medical ASAP. Radio signal was still bad so I switched to Fire Mutual Aide on my radio and was able to get in contact with responding fire personnel. Once contact was made with fire, I was able to guide them to my location and they took over emergency aid.”
Prescott Fire personnel responded the hiker was turned over to the paramedics on scene.
Eleven members of the Yavapai County Search and Rescue Team Back County Unit, assisted in evacuating the hiker to the awaiting ambulance. She was flown to Honor Health in Deer Valley.