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One person was killed, and another was seriously injured after falling while trying to climb Mount Johnson in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska last week.
The National Park Service said that the pair of roper climbers were traversing the "Escalator," a steep and challenging 5,000-foot climb toward the mountain's 8,400-foot summit on Thursday (April 25) night.
The two climbers lost their footing and fell roughly 1,000 feet down the mountain. Another group of climbers witnessed the fall and contacted emergency services around 10:45 p.m. They then descended the mountain to help the hikers and found one had died from the fall while the other was severely injured.
The other climbers dug an ice cave and attended to the injured hiker until help arrived the following day.
"At 7:00 a.m. Friday morning, the park's high-altitude rescue helicopter pilot and two mountaineering rangers launched from Talkeetna. After an initial reconnaissance flight of the accident zone, a mountaineering ranger was short-hauled via long line to the awaiting climbers. Together, the ranger and injured patient were short-hauled out to a flat glacier staging area and then loaded into the helicopter for the flight to Talkeetna. The patient was transferred to a LifeMed air ambulance at the Talkeetna State Airport for further care," the National Park Service said.
The deceased climber was identified as 52-year-old Robbi Mecus. The injured woman was not identified.