North Dakota teen recalls story of survival after plunging 100 feet at Grand Canyon

A North Dakota teen survived a 100-foot fall when he slipped off a cliff on the Grand Canyon throughout a household trip final week.

Wyatt Kauffman, 14, recalled the harrowing expertise from his hospital mattress the place he was recovering after struggling 9 damaged vertebrae, a ruptured spleen and different extreme accidents.

“After the autumn, I don’t keep in mind something after that,” he told Arizona-based KPNX.

“I simply keep in mind considerably waking up and being at the back of an ambulance and a helicopter and getting on a airplane and getting right here.”

Kauffman stated he fell Tuesday when he tried shifting out of the best way so different individuals may take a photograph whereas on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

“I squatted down and was holding onto a rock. I solely had one hand on it,” Kauffman stated, including. “It wasn’t that good of a grip. It was type of pushing me again. I misplaced my grip and began to fall again.”

It took two hours and dozens of first responders with the Nationwide Park Service to repel down the cliff at Vivid Angel Level path and retrieve the boy from the canyon in a basket, the tv station reported.

Along with the damaged vertebrae and ruptured spleen, he sustained a concussion, collapsed lung, damaged hand and dislocated finger.  

Scars and bruises lined one facet of his face, although his father Brian instructed the station it “seems loads higher than it did yesterday.”

Brian was in North Dakota whereas his son and spouse had been visiting nationwide parks. The younger man was reportedly discharged over the weekend and was on the best way house.

“We’re simply fortunate we’re bringing our child house in a automobile within the entrance seat,” Brian Kauffman stated. “As an alternative of in a field.”