Welcome to Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains today we have a superstition mountain rescue story
from Maricopa County Sheriff Clint Bradshaw so like it says working around the superstitions
and the goldfield mountains for all these years I've just had you know the opportunity to respond
to a lot of emergencies and stuff and one one time we were kind of over by Saguaro
lake which is in the area of the Goldfields and uh you know the superstition area and we got a
call that there was a kid stuck on a cliff and which is that's kind of unique we thought so
and they said he was on a very precarious you know little cliff and he was starting to get
weak and he was gonna he was he could fall and and so you know of course we you know lights
and sirens go over there and and I always carry uh an old you know cowboy rope we call lariat
in my truck I just you know you never know if we have calls with with animals and stuff too and
and so um so I grabbed a pair of gloves and uh when we got there on scene and I grabbed a pair
of gloves and i grabbed that lariat out of the back of my truck and you know started heading this
way and this it was summertime so it was pretty hot I and uh we get there and of course the kids
friends were there and they point him out and you know there's so the mountain kind of goes up at an
angle and then it becomes into a cliff and that cliff you know goes straight up like a hundred
feet and he's probably about halfway down that how he got there I don't even know I don't even
think we asked him later but he's on this little ledge about halfway down that so he's maybe 30,
40, 50 feet above you know the where the where the hill then that slants back down and so if he were
to fall off there he could surely die and would definitely be injured pretty pretty bad but he
was right on the edge of the cliff so we're like you know should we should we call in a helicopter
should we uh you know what what could we do well he's he's kind of crying and he's he's calling out
and he's all like my muscles are you know starting to fatigue and he's like I'm gonna fall I'm gonna
fall and he wasn't even on a ledge the ledge he was on was slanted too so I could see there was
a little looked like a little trail up above him a little bit so I hiked up there as fast as I could
with that lariat yet and I kind of came across this trail which really was about this wide
and came across the top of that and i was able to get to where I wasn't right on top of him but he
was he was just at an angle away from me and so I took that lariat and I built the loop in it and um
and I was trying to I was trying to throw it on him um which I was unsuccessful a few times and
then so I was able just to get him the rope and he was able to get it undone and and put it under his
his shoulders or under his armpits you know and kind of hold on you know hold on to it like that
um and so that was good so I thought okay he's secure but then and uh we had some deputies down
below and there were we we'd had some deputies respond in in the patrol boat out there and
and so but I was thinking man if he falls I just don't think I could hold him you know he wasn't
very big but I thought I don't think I don't think I could hold him and there was one little troy a
cactus that was growing out of the side of the mountain if you're ever out there you know in
the superstitions you'll see these saguaro and cactus and other things that literally look like
they're just growing out of the rock there's like a little bit of dirt there but there's a pretty
big cholia cactus there and so i just I kind of took that lariat and I looped it around that choya
and I kind of put my foot down there and I kind of sat back like that and I thought okay but you
know I was like if he falls you know and I also thought man if he falls and the rope starts going
I'm just gonna have to let go of the rope uh I think I'd kind of taken the rope and put it
around me like this and I had another one of our deputies I said come up here come up here
and so he comes up there and and and uh kind of got behind me and was holding the rope too
and so we tried to instruct the kid to turn around and kind of just walk backwards down the cliff
like he was rappelling you know just said hold on to that rope and just walk backwards slowly
and we'll kind of let you well he kind of turned around and no sooner he kind of went to to uh to
walk backwards then he just he just fell and he just went and I just remember him disappearing
and and and I just remember holding onto that rope and the tension came on it and it kind of
on that cholia it kind of and it just hailed and it held and and I couldn't see him because he kind
of went over the ledge but he he just fell and he he only had fallen there wasn't much slack in
the rope so he only fell a little bit and then he was just swinging down there and just dangling you
know with this lariat in his armpit holding on to it like this and and I could hear the
the deputies down there they're like he's okay he's okay they said just lower him down so we
kind of just slowly lowered him down you know until he was on the ground and then
we went back down there and and looked at him and he was perfectly fine he wasn't injured
like I thought maybe the rope had burned him or something but he was perfectly okay and it was
all good and uh I don't know we didn't even I kind of wanted to say what in the world were you guys
climbing up there just kids you know and just being adventurous I guess and everything but
uh and I didn't think it was that big a deal really but some people are like you're crazy
walking out on that little cliff or and I don't know I just like oh i mean because that's you
know climbing up on that cliff was probably something I would have done as a kid so I
felt like it was it was good to save and so he was perfectly fine and and we rescued him
probably not the real good technical what we call rope rescue but we we didn't have time
you know he was gonna fall and if we didn't you know we didn't have time to
wait for a helicopter we didn't have a time to wait for a technical rescue crew we just
which had to do with what we had and I had that old cowboy rope and it worked out real
good thank you for watching this episode of mysteries of the superstition mountains