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Category: Front Page News Front Page News
Published: 27 March 2019 27 March 2019

By Roger Lanse

On Saturday, Mar. 23, 2019, at about 7:16 p.m., the Grant County Regional Dispatch Authority received a missing-persons' call involving kayakers on the Gila River. Caller advised that 50-year-old Marcos Grado had become separated from the group about three hours before and “got stuck in a canyon.”

According to Mark Levesque, New Mexico State Police Search and Rescue, Grado, from Taos, was kayaking with two friends from Silver City when he became separated from them. Levesque, who acted as deputy incident commander on this event, told the Beat that the Gila River in this area is in a narrow canyon with high bluffs on each side.

S&R was on scene by 1:30 a.m. Sunday, Levesque said, and on Sunday afternoon deployed a drone which was able to spot the man’s kayak on a sandbar. Later, a U.S. Border Patrol helicopter spotted the missing man downriver from the kayak, near the confluence of Foxtail Creek about eight miles upriver from the Highway 464 bridge at Red Rock and dropped him some supplies. Grado had been able to climb out of the river to the top of the east bluff, which surprised rescuers, Levesque said.

The drone was resent and was able to talk to Grado, Levesque said, telling him to ‘stay put.’

However, NMSP officer Ray Wilson said, due to the “extremely remote and rough location, the USBP helicopter could not perform an extraction. A National Guard helicopter from Santa Fe was called in to perform a winch operation to extract Grado.”

According to both sources, Grado suffered no serious injuries but was dehydrated, and was flown to Gila Regional Medical Center.