An electrical apprentice who fell at a remote pumping station west of Fort Collins was rescued Monday because of an alert woman and 911 dispatchers who were able to help direct firefighters to the location.
Jose T. Flores, who works for Master Electrical Contracts of Littleton, fractured both his legs after falling 20 feet at the pump station.
Gary Nuckols, battalion chief for the Poudre Fire Authority, credited two 911 dispatchers with speeding the rescue of Flores, who was alone when he fell and was found by Paula Powell, who was walking her dog, a poodle named Terry.
The pump house is located in unincorporated Larimer County on the western edge of the district covered by the Poudre Fire Authority.
Flores and a coworker had been installing a heater in the pump pit of the sewage lift station at Horsetooth Reservoir’s Inlet Bay. The coworker had left to get some equipment when Flores lost his footing on the steel ladder and fell to the concrete floor about 20 feet below the main floor of the station.
Powell, who is new to the area, said as she approached the pump station, she heard someone shout, which she said was probably the instant Flores fell. However, she thought the man in the pump station might have had a habit of talking loudly as he worked. She continued walking until she realized he “was shouting out continually.”
“As I approached the open door, I heard him say, ‘Help me please,’ and I saw him at the bottom of the ladder,” said Powell.
“He told me both his legs were broken. He stayed coherent. He was anxious for help to come and was kind of moaning and groaning,” she said.
When Powell called 911 on her cellphone, she did her best to describe where she was, a situation somewhat complicated because she had just moved to the area.
Nuckols said the situation also was complicated because the area is surrounded on four sides by mountains.
“They did awesome,” said Nuckols of dispatchers Donna McWhorter and Judy Reed of the Poudre Emergency Communications Center in Fort Collins.
The battalion chief said the two relayed messages given to them by Powell to Poudre Fire Authority crews. Powell’s identification of landmarks, including a county road, a restaurant and a subdivision, tipped rescuers off to the fact that Flores had fallen near the Inlet Knoll subdivision, said Nuckols.
Poudre firefighters driving in the area also were assisted when Powell’s cellphone hit a satellite and electronically communicated a GPS location to McWhorter.
The dispatcher was able to determine the pump station was in the 5000 block of West Bay Drive.
Nuckols said that emergency responders sometimes have to ask dispatchers to ask specific questions of people calling 911 but that McWhorter and Reed “were already coming up one step ahead of us.”
“They really did a good job,” said Nuckols of the two dispatchers. He has written a letter of commendation to the dispatchers’ supervisor.
Firefighters soon reached the station and were able to pull Flores out. The rescue took about 45 minutes, and Flores was airlifted to Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland.
Fifteen Poudre firefighters and five paramedics and EMTs from the Poudre Valley Health System were involved in the rescue.
The pump station is owned by the Spring Canyon Water and Sanitation District.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
