Climbers Matthew Christenson, 26, and Tony McLane, 20, were attempting to climb the Nose on El Capitan in a single day on May 15th when Christenson took a 30-foot leader fall on pitch 25 and suffered a closed head injury. McLane fixed the climbing rope to an anchor, ascended to his partner, and found that he was hanging upside down, suffering from changes in consciousness, and bleeding profusely from the back of his head. Since he had neither a cell phone nor a radio with him, McLane used his headlamp to signal a party that was below in El Capitan meadow. Rangers employed a loud speaker to contact him. Between the loud speaker and the headlamp, they were able to determine that he was asking for a rescue.

On the morning of May 16th, a technical rescue team and park helicopter were in the El Cap meadow preparing for the operation when a spotter in the meadow saw a person climbing from a ledge where Christenson was believed to be located. The park helicopter flew up to the spot, where they saw McLane wave off the rescue. Two YOSAR team members were sent to the top of El Capitan to contact McLane and determine the reason for canceling the rescue. McLane reached the YOSAR team members around 4:30 p.m. He said that Christenson’s condition had deteriorated over the course of the day and that he needed immediate medical care. Christenson was able to ascend fix ropes and was still moving towards the top-out point. When he reached the El Cap tree, he collapsed. A medical team was flown to the El Cap landing zone and moved down to Christenson’s location, where they provided medical care. Christenson was placed in a litter while a park helicopter was prepped for a short-haul extraction. Ranger/parkmedic Rob Lewis was flown to Christenson’s location and the pair were short-hauled to the El Capitan meadow, where Christenson was transferred to an air ambulance and flown to Memorial Hospital. Doctors determined that Christenson had sustained a fractured skull, subdural hematoma and a cerebral bleed. He was in the hospital’s ICU at the time of the report and was in stable condition.