(Editor's note: When Yosemite rangers conducted a mile-high rescue of an injured mountain climber Sept. 26, our reporter was right in the middle of things.)

    It was just a short fall, maybe four feet, but Michael Schmoelzer's climbing rope had encircled a thumb, and the resulting jolt sliced it from his right hand like a surgeon's scalpel.

    Complicating matters for the Austrian mountain climber: he now was hanging suspended and helpless on the sheer granite face of one of the world's most challenging edifices, 7,569-foot El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park.

    Schmoelzer later would tell a San Francisco television reporter that he shouted down to his climbing partner, who stood perched 80 feet below on a tiny rock shelf, “Did you see my thumb? And my partner yelled back, ‘Yes, it has fallen at my feet.'”

*  *  *

    The insistent, rhythmic thwup! thwup! thwup! of the helicopter's rotor blades reverberated throughout Yosemite Valley, rapidly seducing a gathering crowd of hundreds of spellbound tourists, all craning necks to glimpse the launch of a daring and dangerous rescue featuring two of the park's crack search and rescue team.

    Word of the climber's dilemma had been relayed, albeit delayed nearly a half hour because their cell phone call for help was to "211," a European emergency dispatch system, instead of "911."

    But now park rangers and climbing experts Jeff Webb and Dave Pope were on the scene, peering out of the Bell Long Ranger's open door at the injured climber and his partner wedged into a small rock gap, and evaluating the job that awaited. The chopper glided back and forth as the rescue team scoped the rock surface and the climbers' immediate surroundings.

    "We were talking about whether we would have to do a more traditional operation (over the cliff on ropes)," said Webb as he recalled his rescue efforts several days later.

    After a discussion on the ground with additional rescue team members about options, and with afternoon shadows rapidly lengthening, Yosemite Valley District Ranger Eric Gabriel made the decision: Short haul.

    Webb and Pope would employ a rescue technique called the “short haul,” which is really a death-defying ride on a thin (but immensely strong) rope attached to the bottom of the helicopter.

  Strapped in circular seats not unlike flexible car tires, the pair was lifted into the air as the aircraft spiraled toward the stranded climbers.

    Ascending, Webb and Pope shouted to hear one another above the roar of the helicopter's engines.

    "We were wondering if the mission was going to work, and we were discussing what our roles would be. It was kind of loud," said Webb, 41. "But Dave was going to be the guy on the radio, and coordinate with the ship. I was going to pull us in and clip us up to the wall. So we were just going over what we were going to do."

    The climbers were on the notoriously tricky Nose Route, settled in a small recessed rock alcove and sheltered by a significant overhanging ledge. This created difficult conditions for the pilot of the hovering helicopter, Richard Shatto, and his Helitec crew, Jeff Pirog and Eric Small.

    "The challenge there is that the wall overhangs," said Webb, "so the ship couldn't get too close. We're below, and we're calling out the rotor distance. We look up, see the rotor disk... it's 50 feet (in diameter) so we can look at it and then the wall, and tell (the pilot) you're fifty feet out, o.k., you're half a disc. You're twenty feet out... and at that mark, that's about as close as they're going to go. Twenty feet is very close."

    Pilot Shatto apparently thought so, too.

    "But we're still 50 feet from the victim," said Webb. "So the ship lowered until it was roughly just above the climbers. Then (the helicopter crew) opened the door and threw a bean bag connected to a cord, and the climbers pulled this cord in. One end was attached a regular rope, and the climbers were holding that. The other end of the rope was then lowered to us, and that's what we used to pull ourselves in."

    Webb said conversation with the injured climber and his partner was limited due to the noise of the aircraft overhead.

    The rescuers managed to to shout to the victim: "You've got the thumb?" The severed digit was already secured in a ZipLok bag.

    "But there was no real talking, the noise was so deafening," Webb said. "We'd use hand signals, like thumbs up, or 'don't touch that.'"

    After the injured climber was secured for the ride down to the valley floor, his rescuers realized something: "At the apex of the swing (away from the wall) there would be three weights coming back into the rock. So I stayed, and lowered them out. We were afraid that if we just cut away, so to speak, that the victim would swing into the wall too hard.

    "So I lowered them out a little bit", and off went Schmoelzer and Pope to the safety of the valley floor below, leaving Webb behind.

    "That basically meant that I would have to spend the night," said Webb. Which of the pair would remain in such an event had been decided before Webb and Pope got to the scene and began procedures.

    Schmoelzer was airlifted to California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, where his thumb was reattached.

    Webb said he has no real memory of any discussion with victim.

    "There was so much noise, and the sudden exposure of being that high up all of a sudden, it's kind of overwhelming. The situation was evolving very fast, and we didn't take a lot of equipment with us."

    But he was able to use Schmoelzer's gear for the overnight, and in the morning he and the remaining Austrian were raised to El Capitan's crest “using traditional rescue lift procedures.” There they were met by the helicopter.

    Webb said the rescue “was not the most difficult. We train for this particular kind of extraction. It's really pretty straight forward. The really difficult ones are when people get into really hard to reach places, or you're working at night, or in bad weather. But they're all challenging, all kinda fun, I guess."

    Head ranger Gabriel said the operation "was an incredibly technical and complex rescue mission, with a lot of inherent risk. But knowing that the thumb could be reattached, coupled with the confidence I have in my team, I made the decision to attempt this rescue. I was relieved that this ended successfully and we were able to make a positive difference in this person's life."

    Yosemite's rescue team conducts more than 250 operations annually, and almost half involve minor extremity injuries requiring transport of a victim. Webb said many of these injuries occur when "scramblers" - hikers who often do not have proper equipment - get themselves into dangerous situations.

    Webb said one of the most gratifying things about his job is "being able to offer a unique kind of help, one that perhaps no one else can. I probably wouldn't be doing this, otherwise."

    And on his day off following the rescue, Webb said he went rock climbing on Three Arches in the park, because, "Well, that's what I do."

Photo Gallery (Photos by Daniel Blackburn)