On Monday, July 2nd, rangers rescued Debbie Whitaker, 45, of St. George, Utah, who’d injured her ankle the previous day in the Subway (the Left Fork of North Creek). Rangers were contacted by members of a group hiking out of the Subway Sunday evening. They reported that a woman in their party had sustained a ground-level fall near the last rappel in the canyon and was suffering from a severely sprained or possibly broken ankle. Rangers arrived at the scene at approximately 8:30 p.m. and found that Whitaker’s ankle injury prevented her from hiking out. Due to the time of day and the nature of the incident, it was decided to attempt a helicopter evacuation on Monday, since a technical rescue would require a larger number of people and increase danger to the team. Two park rangers/medics spent the night with Whitaker in the Subway. Early on Monday morning, a helicopter from Grand Canyon National Park was called in to perform the short haul operation to extract her. Whitaker was successfully airlifted from the Subway at 10:30 a.m., then transferred to the park ambulance and taken to Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George.
