An unidentified 2 thumbed climber from Austria was jubilantly climbing up Yosemite’s iconic El Capitan on Monday, September 26th when he fell, got the rope wrapped around his thumb, and had it viciously cut clean off.
Yosemite Professional Thumb Rescuers Jeff Webb & Dave Pope being long-lined to thumbless Austrian from a helicopter. photo: Tom Evans, NPS
Fortunately for the Austrian, his thumb landed on a 2’ x 1’ ledge about 80 below him. His climbing buddy used his two fully intact opposable thumbs to grab the severed thumb and to give Yosemite’s emergency thumb phone number a ring.
Professional Thumb Rescuers hurriedly arrived on the scene and long lined the thumb & the thumbless Austrian dude off El Cap. Once on the ground, they put him in another thumb rescue heli and whisked thumb & thumbless human to San Francisco.
California Pacific Medical Center’s surgeons were easily able to sew the thumb back on, thusly reuniting yet another poor, thumbless man and his beloved thumb.
“This was an incredibly technical and complex rescue mission with a lot of inherent risk. However, knowing that the thumb could be reattached, coupled with the confidence I have in my team, I made the decision to attempt this rescue,” said Yosemite Ranger Gabriel. “I was relieved, and thrilled, that this ended successfully and we were able to make a positive difference in this person’s life.”
photo: entertainment.desktopnexus.com
Good call risking your teams lives & safety for a thumb, Gabi.
What happened to the other thumb-ful climber? Professional Thumb Rescuers stated:
“F#$k that 2 thumbed ass clown. We left him there overnite and didn’t even bother to get him down until the next day.” – Professional Thumb Rescue Team Capitan