Cadets perform CPR on ailing hiker

  • Published
  • By David Edwards
  • U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  A day of hiking on Quandary Peak turned into an experience that three senior cadets from the Air Force Academy won't soon forget.

Cadets 1st Class Benjamin Gomez, Andrew Nemethy and Michael Smith were near the summit of the popular fourteener when they saw a Flight for Life helicopter land nearby.

"We thought that was a little strange, so we looked to see what was going on," Nemethy said. "When we saw a red shirt raised and a group of people maybe 150 to 200 feet from the peak. We thought it was just a training exercise, but we ran down the peak just to check. I got there first and saw a man we'd met earlier on the trail doing CPR, another hiker helping to support his head, and the nurse from the helicopter setting up an oxygen bottle."

The assistance call was for 48-year-old Mostafa Salehi, who reportedly had suffered a heart attack. The cadets volunteered to help administer CPR. Unfortunately, their efforts went for naught: because of the remoteness of the location, the would-be rescuers could not apply potentially life-saving measures until it was too late.

Although Salehi died, the Summit County Rescue Group incident commander, Joe Ben Slivka, said the cadets' help was invaluable.

"They did a phenomenal job. They gave the guy the best opportunity to survive," Slivka told the Summit Daily News.

Slivka said the chances of CPR being successful at such a high elevation are extremely slim. When the man collapsed, he was approximately 100 yards from the mountain's 14,265-foot summit.

Nemethy said medical personnel later advised the cadets to descend because lightning was approaching. They did as they were told, but they couldn't help but be affected by a day that deviated drastically from their original plans.

"Emotionally, I don't have nightmares or anything but I'm just (angry) we couldn't hear them earlier," Nemethy said. "I couldn't believe we were just sitting on top of the mountain resting while a man was dying, with his friend doing CPR for 45 minutes only 200 feet away. It didn't change our plans since we were planning to head down then anyway, but I guess the conversation on the way down was a little different."

The Summit Daily News reported that Salehi was a contract employee at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He moved to Boulder, Colo., after emigrating from the Middle East. His family lives in Iran.