Yosemite Climber Dies, Rescuer Hurt

Cable breaks in an attempt to help man who had fallen.

By Michael Baker
The Fresno Bee - June 15, 2002

A Navy crewman stationed in Lemoore was in serious but stable condition Friday after being critically injured in a Yosemite Valley rescue attempt during which a rock climber died, officials said.

In the Thursday evening helicopter rescue attempt, a metal cable lifting Navy Hospital Corpsman Jason Laird and an injured rock climber broke, said Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman.

Although a safety line kept the gurney carrying the two men from crashing to the ground, Laird suffered internal chest injuries and a pelvic fracture, said Dennis McGrath, Lemoore Naval Air Station spokesman.

When the helicopter lowered the two men to El Capitan Meadow, the climber was dead, Gediman said. Rock climber Richard Zucatto of Baytown, Texas, had been in critical condition but alive when the airlift operation began.

It was not clear whether Zucatto, 43, died of injuries he sustained when he fell nearly 100 feet from a sheer granite cliff or of injuries during the helicopter flight, Gediman said. "Investigators are trying to figure out what caused his death."

Laird was taken to Doctor's Medical Center in Modesto about 6 p.m. Thursday with injuries not considered to be life threatening, McGrath said.

The rescue operation was sparked shortly after noon Thursday when an off-duty ranger and another man heard cries for help coming from the Cathedral Rocks area, south of El Capitan, Gediman said.

Zucatto was spotted at the bottom of Higher Cathedral Rock, an advanced climbing route.

"He had been climbing solo and fell 75 to 100 feet," Gediman said.

Three park rangers rappelled to the area from a helicopter and strapped Zucatto to a metal gurney, but a larger helicopter had to be called in from Lemoore to lift the climber.

Laird arrived from Lemoore and was being airlifted along with Zucatto from the area when the helicopter malfunctioned.

"Whether it was a mechanical failure or caused by an environmental factor hasn't been determined," Gediman said. "The malfunction caused the metal cable to be severed or snapped."

Investigators from the Navy, National Park Service and the Interior Department are looking into the incident. It was Yosemite's first rock-climbing fatality since August 2001, when a man fell about 1,800 feet off the northwest face of Half Dome.