Glenwood Springs police on Tuesday couldn’t say why they pursued him, but a fugitive who eluded them by leaping into the Colorado River’s 40-degree currents later was caught by sheriff’s rescuers using a whitewater raft.
Then Dryden McIntosh, 37, went free again after nurses at Valley View Hospital treated him for hypothermia. The hospital released him Tuesday morning, nursing supervisor Eric Wiepking said.
Garfield County Sheriff’s deputies didn’t book him into the jail, spokeswoman Tanny McGinnis said.
Glenwood Springs Police Chief Terry Wilson said McIntosh was a transient wanted on multiple warrants.
The police tried to arrest McIntosh on Monday at dusk, but he leapt into the river on the west side of the city, McGinnis said.
A new radio system purchased using federal Homeland Security grants helped deputies, police, Colorado State Patrol troopers and firefighters follow McIntosh as river currents carried him for more than 2 miles, McGinnis said.
Deputies and firefighters shouted from river banks, trying to persuade him to swim to the shore, she said. “He moved away to the center of the river. He didn’t want to be caught,” she said.
Sheriff’s rescuers paddled a whitewater raft downriver to a rock where, after about 90 minutes, McIntosh was perched and shivering.
” ‘Cold,’ was all he could say. He was in pretty bad shape,” said rescuer David Pruet. “If he did get away, I hope he didn’t jump back in the river.” Bruce Finley, The Denver Post
