Alaska hiker rescued from under 700lb boulder in frigid creek

BBC News

30-05-2025

A hiker in Alaska miraculously survived after he was trapped facedown in a frigid creek for three hours under a massive boulder. Kell Morris was hiking with his wife below a glacier outside the city of Anchorage when a rock slide sent him plunging into the creek. A 700lb (318kg) stone came to rest on top of his leg, pinning him in place.His wife positioned his head out of the water and called for help from rescuers, giving them the exact coordinates of their location. After a few days in hospital, he walked away nearly completely unscathed.
The accident occurred on Saturday near Godwin Glacier. Mr Morris says that the rock that pinned him in place landed in a "trough" of other rocks, protecting him from being crushed but preventing him from being able to move. A rescue crew arrived by helicopter and had to use tools to lift the boulder.They were also working against the clock: the glacier-fed creek was rising as the heat of the day caused ice and snow melt to occur more quickly. "I thought, I'm not going to last long in this water," Mr Morris recalled in an interview on Wednesday with the Anchorage Daily News."The water had gotten up to my chin," Mr Morris said. "I was going in and out of consciousness. I'd been shivering, but I stopped shivering every once in a while."His wife Jo Roop, who works as a police officer for the city of Seward, made sure he was able to hold himself out of the water in a press up position so she could hike to find enough mobile phone service to call for help. She still retained her sense of humour during the ordeal, he told Alaska Public Media (APM), recalling: "She graciously tells me, 'don't go anywhere. I'll be right back.'"Ms Roop was able to provide exact GPS coordinates for their location, according to rescue officials. In a stroke of luck, a volunteer firefighter overheard the radio call for rescue while working for a sled dog tour company. He was able to divert a helicopter used for shuttling tourists to pick up rescuers and take them to the accident site.
But the helicopter was not able to land, due to the rough terrain."The patient was in a boulder field and the helicopter could only hover while firefighters had to jump from the helicopter to the ground as the helicopter could not land safely," the Seward Fire Department said in a statement posted to Facebook.Rescuers used inflatable airbags to lift the rock, and a National Guard helicopter brought Mr Morris to hospital where he was treated for hypothermia.Now recovered, Mr Morris says he suffered little more than bruises, and is already back on his feet. "I'm walking and, you know, if there was a band nearby, I'd go dancing tonight," he told APM.