Kentlake High <\/a>seniors Brian Benshoof, Alex Posielski and Bryton Seyfert attempted to save a man\u2019s life near Snoqualmie Valley on the Denny Creek trail.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nWilliam Peter Allen, a 21 year old University of Washington student, fell while attempting to free climb. Benshoof and his friends were among the first at the scene.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were searching for a geocache location and I heard a yell,\u201d Benshoof said. \u201cWe looked up to the ridge and saw a man falling. He fell approximately 50 feet down, onto a very steep slope that had loose, sharp rocks on it, where he tumbled for about 200 feet until he came to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When the group went to the fallen man, they found him to have several head lacerations, severe bleeding, a leg gash, and a broken right leg.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Though his eyes were open, Allen was never conscious.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Benshoof, Posielski, two campers from nearby, and a hiking buddy of Allen\u2019s then worked to turn Allen onto his back, clear his airways, and dress his wounds while Seyfert kept lookout on a nearby trail.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first thought was, \u2018Is he alive?\u2019and that was very quickly answered with his breathing,\u201d Benshoof said. \u201cYou could hear the breathing. It was very loud, and you could hear blood in his lungs \u2026 It was a little hard to handle.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The group called 911. The operator transferred them to King County Search and Rescue. A helicopter was sent to recover the man.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all waiting for the helicopter with him,\u201d Posielski said. \u201cWe all wanted to help in whatever way possible. Some people were supporting his body, others were caring for him and everybody was yelling at him to fight and not give up. It was amazing to see a group of complete strangers cooperate and work together to help a fellow hiker.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After 45 minutes of waiting for the helicopter Allen\u2019s breathing decreased and became shallow. Thirty minutes later, it was inaudible.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Benshoof and the two campers began rescue breaths once every 10 minutes to restart Allen\u2019s breathing. When Allen required more than one breath per minute, CPR began.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did that [CPR] for an hour and helicopters arrived from King County Search and Rescue,\u201d Benshoof said. \u201cThey lowered down two search and rescuers and they assessed the situation. They had me stop doing compressions, checked his pulse, and checked his breathing. Neither was active. We were getting a pulse during CPR only because of the compressions \u2026 They called time of death there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Though Benshoof, a Boy Scout, is thoroughly trained in CPR, he says that the difference between learning in a secure setting and performing in the field is immense.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving first aid training and CPR training, you\u2019ve practiced CPR on a faceless dummy, that doesn\u2019t have any injuries, that doesn\u2019t have a name,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t see the dummy\u2019s friends standing by, crying. You don\u2019t shout at the dummy, \u2018You\u2019re going to make it\u2019… We kept doing CPR because that\u2019s all we could do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This story originally ran in the Sept. 16 edition of The Falcon Flyer, the Kentlake High School student newspaper, and was submitted by the Flyer\u2019s student editors to the Reporter.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While hiking Sept. 5, Kentlake High seniors Brian Benshoof, Alex Posielski and Bryton Seyfert attempted to save a man\u2019s life near Snoqualmie Valley on the Denny Creek trail.
\nWilliam Peter Allen, a 21 year old University of Washington student, fell while attempting to free climb. Benshoof and his friends were among the first at the scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-3810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}