Visitor Survives Plunge Into Yosemite Falls

June 5, 2014 - Around noon on Wednesday, May 28th, park dispatch received an emergency call from a group of backpackers who reported that one of their number had fallen into the Middle Cascade of Yosemite Falls.

The victim, a 22-year-old man from Union City, California, was on a backpacking trip with three of his friends. When they stopped on their return trip at the Middle Cascade at the base of Upper Yosemite Fall, he fell into the water while reaching for his sunglasses. He was swept several hundred feet through the 675-foot-high Middle Cascade into an eddy in a pool of water, where he was able to climb onto a large boulder in the middle of the cascade.

Immediately upon receiving the call, a Yosemite search and rescue team was dispatched to the location of the incident along the Upper Yosemite Fall Trail. At the same time, the park’s contract helicopter was ordered out for a reconnaissance flight.

With members of the initial ground team acting as spotters from the edge of the gorge, the helicopter inserted Ranger Ed Visnovske via short haul to the man’s location. He was found to be slightly hypothermic, but otherwise uninjured. Visnovske and the man were then short hauled to Yosemite Valley, where the man declined medical treatment.

Yosemite Valley District Ranger Jack Hoeflich was IC for this rescue.

He was swept several hundred feet through the 675-foot-high Middle Cascade into an eddy in a pool of water, where he was able to climb onto a large boulder in the middle of the cascade.