Photo: Office of Emergency Management, San Juan County Colorado
A hiker with a broken leg was rescued after spending two days stranded in the Colorado wilderness thanks to an eagle-eyed passenger on a Durango Silverton Narrow Gauge Train, the Office of Emergency Management, San Juan County, Colorado, said in a post on Facebook.
The passenger noticed the woman was in distress and notified the train's crew, who stopped and contacted emergency officials in San Juan County, Colorado.
Two of the train crew members, who are La Plata County medics, waded across the Animas River to help the woman. They assessed her injuries while waiting for a Silverton Medical Rescue team to arrive.
The woman was placed on a backboard and transported to a waiting medevac helicopter which airlifted the woman to the hospital.
Officials have not identified the woman and did not provide information about her condition.
Her father, Anthony Montoya, spoke to the Denver Gazzette and said that while his daughter was injured after falling off a cliff, she was able to keep her wits about her and drag herself close enough to the train tracks that she could be seen.
"It took everything I had in me to crawl to where I was able to be seen," she told her father.
"No telling what she went through that night," Montoya said. "She's a bright young lady. She kept positive. That's how she made it out."
He said she suffered a broken leg and a hip injury in the fall. She is being transported from Colorado to a hospital in New Mexico, where she will undergo surgery.