Glenwood Springs police pursuing a man they identified as a “fugitive” lost him when he leapt into the Colorado River’s 40-degree currents. Garfield County sheriff’s deputies, Colorado State Patrol troopers, firefighters and the sheriff’s search-and-rescue squad later nabbed him by using fancy new radios and whitewater river rafts.
Valley View Hospital nurses treated Dryden McIntosh, 37, for hypothermia and released him Tuesday morning, supervisor Eric Wiepking said.
A Garfield County sheriff’s booking officer said McIntosh was booked into jail Tuesday night on charges of resisting arrest. Glenwood Springs police Chief Terry Wilson said McIntosh was a transient wanted on multiple criminal warrants.
Police tried to arrest him Monday at dusk. He eluded officers and leapt into the river, prompting police to call for assistance, sheriff’s spokeswoman Tanny McGinnis said.
New radios purchased using Homeland Security grants helped deputies, police, State Patrol troopers and firefighters follow McIntosh as river currents carried him for more than 2 miles.
Deputies shouted from riverbanks, trying unsuccessfully to persuade him to swim ashore, McGinnis said. Sheriff’s rescuers paddled a raft to a rock where, after about 90 minutes, McIntosh perched, shivering and unable to move.
” ‘Cold,’ was all he could say. He was in pretty bad shape,” rescuer David Pruett said, adding that other suspects last summer and fall escaped from the police this way. “The water never stops and is very powerful. You’re going to lose when you get in the water.” Bruce Finley, The Denver Post
