Pamestique 

Interesting day... rode up Blackstar Rd. to Main Divide early this morning. When I get to the top, saw some kids playing on an old water drilling tower:



As soon as I complete my climb and the Tower comes into full view, I see one of the rails break and a young man falls about 40 ft to the ground and lands hard on his back. He was up there on Main Divide running with his cross-country team. His coach was absolutely clueless. My friend and I are first aid certified so we took over. The young man was seriously injured I believe with a fx wrist and possibly tail bone and bad contusions and lacerations on both knees, arms, back and butt. He went into shock fairly quickly.

Anyway to make a long story short, we called 911, a Cal Fire helicopter and truck arrived (took 40 minutes from the call). An Orange County truck and helicopter also showed up. All was cool to see but I felt so bad for this young boy (he was 15) and just started high school. I got mad at his group as they are took off except for one young girl and the coach. The girl was gorgeous and she was so sweet and gentle with the young man. He would put her arms around him and just keep him engaged. My riding companion is a mom and just went into mom mode holding and talking softly to the boy (who had been crying the whole time) he was brave, he was tough and he was going to be alright.

Anyway he got a ride in a helicopter - hope that makes up for the pain! Sortof put a damper on what started out to be a lovely ride... we were all very somber going down...