The Chaffee County Search and Rescue South team searched for a missing worker. Chaffee County Search and Rescue South
A work trip in Colorado ends in a dramatic night for a man alone on a 14,230 meter high mountain. His colleagues left him behind and a search and rescue team had to evacuate him. Find out how this happened and what lessons companies should learn from such team building events. Read all the details with BI+
A work trip ended dangerously last week after an employee from Colorado was reportedly stranded on a mountain.
His colleagues left him to climb the summit alone. He got lost on the descent, according to his rescuers.
The man survived a night alone on the mountain and was only finally found after an extensive search lasting several hours.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and reviewed by a real editor.
It was supposed to be a nice work trip. For a man from Colorado, however, the trip ended with a night alone in nature on a 14,230-meter-high mountain. He was stranded there and left behind by his colleagues. A search and rescue team had to evacuate the man, local authorities said.
The man was left behind on the summit of Mount Shavano in Colorado last week because his 14 colleagues had descended the mountain without him. An inglorious end to a work trip. The southern division of Chaffee County Search and Rescue reported this in a Facebook post.
Action could “lead to some unpleasant encounters in the office,” said the rescuers
“In a situation that could lead to some unpleasant encounters in the office in the coming days and weeks, one member of the group was left alone to complete his final summit attempt,” said the rescuers. The president of the rescue group, Danny Andres, went into more detail in an interview with local broadcaster 9News. “We see this again and again, that someone is a little faster, someone a little slower, especially on the fourteeners,” he said.
A 14,000-meter peak is a mountain that is more than 14,000 meters high. The air there is thinner than at sea level. According to the rescuers’ Facebook post, the man reached the top of the mountain at 11:30 a.m., but lost his bearings on the way down.
His colleagues had removed objects they had left as markers along the path. He eventually found himself on a steep scree field, the post continues. The man then sent a message to his colleagues to let them know that he was lost.
Chaffee County Search and Rescue South posted this image from the search.
Chaffee County Search and Rescue South
At around 3:30 p.m. he sent another message informing him that he had indeed reached the ridge, but that “a strong storm with freezing rain and strong wind” was approaching. He had lost his bearings again – and also his cell phone reception.
At 9 p.m., Chaffee County South Search and Rescue was alerted and activated two teams, a drone pilot and a helicopter. Weather conditions on the mountain made things difficult, the group said. The helicopter “could not detect any artificial light sources anywhere on the mountain other than the search teams, despite multiple search flights in the area.”
By 9 a.m. the next morning, they had found nothing. A call was then made to nine other search and rescue teams across the country.
Search and rescue teams say they looked all night for the missing worker.
Chaffee County Search and Rescue South
But just as these groups were setting off, the man regained cell reception and was able to make a distress call, Chaffee County Search and Rescue South wrote. The man was in very poor condition: He said he had fallen more than 20 times and ended up in a ravine from which he could not get up. Thanks to the call, the group was able to locate him and carry out a complicated rescue operation, it said.
This hiker was phenomenally lucky.
“This hiker was phenomenally lucky that he had cell reception again at the right time. And that he was still conscious and able to call 911,” the post says.
In recent years, the classic work trip has come under criticism from time to time due to overzealous team-building exercises. Some of them went to or even exceeded the limits of what was acceptable.
There were also notable injuries. For example, employees had to walk over hot coals during a retreat in 2022. Also unforgettable are the hedonistic excesses that former WeWork employees reported to Business Insider in 2019. Industry experts recommend planning a mix of group activities combined with downtime and work-related meetings.
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