A group of football players looking to learn leadership skills in a local wilderness area this summer instead received a lesson in what not to do, leaving one of their own behind to be later found by Vail Mountain Rescue.
Indiana Wesleyan Coach Andrew Rode, in an Instagram post, said his team’s June 22 hike to the summit of the Mount of the Holy Cross was meant to prepare the seniors to become leaders.
“This Colorado trip is about challenge, and it is about unifying,” Rode said.
But for one 275-pound defensive lineman — described as an inexperienced hiker from Indiana — a feeling of unification was not likely after he was “left on the trail with instructions to stay put while the rest of the group continued,” according to an Eagle County Sheriff’s Office incident report recently obtained by the Vail Daily.
This occurred after the 23-year-old “began feeling unwell” and was “unable to continue the hike,” approximately 3 miles from the trailhead, at about 10:30 a.m., according to the report. He was left with food and water, but no other equipment, while the rest of the group continued for another 5 miles to the 14,011-foot summit and back.
“Upon the group’s return, the individual was no longer at the location, although the food and water he was left with remained,” according to the report.
Vail Mountain Rescue was notified at about 6:30 p.m., and a team of five searchers was deployed to look for the man. That team included two individuals operating a drone, two searchers on foot and one person stationed at the trailhead.
An early morning update the next day, at 1:53 a.m., said that one of the people in the field made voice contact with the lost man and learned he was uninjured.
“Searchers are working their way to him around a large swampy area,” according to the report.
At 2:20 a.m. on June 23, the Sheriff’s Office received a report that search teams had made physical contact with the man and would be walking him out of the field shortly. At 6:30 a.m., Vail Mountain Rescue notified the Sheriff’s Office that all involved parties were out of the field.
Because the victim suffering from asthma issues and did not have an inhaler, the decision was made to air lift him to Vail Health Hospital. He was picked up via helicopter at a location near the intersection of Highway 24 and Tigwon Road.
Rode declined to comment on the incident, but in his Instagram post about the hike, he did mention the fact that the group faced challenges on the trip.
“I believe that when men are challenged, they’re often at their best, and that’s why I love watching this group and this trip, I love watching what happens here,” he said. “Because when you put men into a place when they are really challenged physically or mentally or in a variety of ways, you see the best come out of them, and as a class, when they come together, and the best comes out of the class, you see the potential that they have to lead in the fall, and you see the potential that we have as a team coming up.”
If leadership and coming together as a class was the goal, there was a major missed opportunity in that respect, said local hiking guide Nate Goldberg, who has participated in several missing person searches in the Holy Cross wilderness.
“He should have never been left behind alone,” Goldberg said. “That’s one of the unwritten rules of hiking in the wilderness, leave no one behind.”
Goldberg said often times, when a person is lost in the wilderness, it’s not because they were hiking alone, but because a member or members of their group decided to continue on and “bag the peak” without them.
“Especially with a group of guys like that, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and the adrenaline and the ‘we’re going for it’ mindset,” Goldberg said. “But the peak will be there another day. They’re fixated on the destination, not the journey, but it should be the other way around.”
Goldberg said throughout history, expeditions have adopted the mantra “leave no man behind” for a reason. In the modern day, the saying is still in play, “especially on a team building expedition like this one,” Goldberg said. “And even if you are going to divide and conquer, you still leave no one behind.”
Goldberg said a group leader should also be assessing the group’s health conditions before and throughout the trip.
“In a situation like that — especially with exasperating health conditions, but even without — somebody, one or two people minimum, should have stayed behind with him,” Goldberg said. “And that would have been a leadership opportunity, as well, to lead by example and do the right thing for your teammate.”
