A motorist was injured over the weekend after driving a pickup truck off the side of U.S. 550 in Ouray County and descending 400 feet into a gorge, necessitating a rescue crew to use ropes, a winch and a litter to lift the driver to safety.
The motorist, who was not identified, had to be lifted back up to the roadway by rescuers using ropes and a truck winch, according to a . Authorities said the driver was not severely injured but was unable to walk up the embankment.
“The patient was packaged in the litter and the team performed a scree evacuation using truck with boom, winch with two 600-foot ropes, and three litter attendants — with multiple Ouray Fire members assisting with the raise,” the rescue team wrote in its Tuesday morning post.
The Saturday morning incident was the third time in the past year that a vehicle has plunged off the sinuous, and sometimes treacherous, roadway — also known as the Million Dollar Highway. The mountainous road connects Silverton to Ouray, traversing the rugged San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado.
In August, two adults were killed after a car drove off Red Mountain Pass and rolled 320 feet down the mountain, landing upside-down in a creek. A girl who was trapped in the car was rescued.
Two months later, a man was rescued from Uncompahgre Gorge after he drove a pickup truck over the edge of Red Mountain Pass between mile markers 88 and 89. Mile marker 89 was the location of Saturday’s incident.
The Ouray County Sheriff’s Department, Ouray County EMS and Ouray Fire helped work the scene.
