Climbing students help with fallen climber at Skaha Bluffs

PENTICTON — An adventure tourism instructor was impressed with his students when they helped a fallen climber get ready for evacuation at Skaha Bluffs last week.

A climber, not associated with instructor Graeme Marshall or his Grade 12 students, fell while climbing Skaha Bluffs on June 5. The individual landed near Marshall's position. The instructor has been climbing at Skaha Bluffs for 20 years and is a responder with Nelson Search and Rescue. He's seen his share of accidents but the one on June 6 was tough.

"We had 16 teenagers there. My priority is my students," he said. Marshall teaches adventure tourism at LV Secondary School in Nelson, B.C. Right after the fall those same students got to work.

"They weren't liabilities," he said. "They were assets. They helped in clearing the helipad, helped with the spine board, they helped with first aid."

The students were calm and collected he said. Marshall was also amazed the fallen climber was not more injured than he was. He said he doesn't use the word miraculous very often but he used it here.

The climber was taken to Kelowna General Hospital by B.C. Air Ambulance. As far as Marshall could tell it appeared the climber would survive his injuries.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Quesnel at squesnel@infotelnews.ca, call 250-488-3065 or tweet @shannonquesnel1