Outdoor Retailer - July 2017 - 41

1990s

Courtesy Dieter Tremp

Outdoor Retailer 35th Anniversary
outside begin to tremble and paste up against
the opaque glass. The noise grew louder. Yet I
stayed on the phone...until both of my eardrums
popped simultaneously.
Something serious was happening. In a distant classroom I'd learned that when you're
near the vortex of a tornado, the pressure drops
steeply and your ears pop. It means you're
close-too close. I knew what was happening.
I hurried past show operations manager Cathy Griffith, frozen in shock at the office
entry, while the radios sputtered from the all
glass room to the all-glass doorways. The radios crackled incoherently and went quiet as the
torrent ripped into the building and everything
just outside of it. At the SPCC North entrance,
a small group had gathered to watch the maelstrom of debris flying sideways down South
Temple Street.Tree branches, garbage, and
hunks of glass, metal, and stone all tore through
downtown, pushed by an unseen force.
Panic welled up in my stomach thinking of
the pavilions across the street. I moved out into
the crash-door entryway, going into EMT mode
and focusing on delivering short-term medical
help to an unknown number of injured. In my
small group, I saw two mentors, who had been
key to my upbringing in the outdoor industry,
Michael Hodgson and Larry Harrison. I was
not sure exactly what was about to happen, but I
was at least comforted knowing that a few of the
most important people in my life were with me.
We watched in near silence as the horizontal
river of stone and metal crested in intensity. It
was an unbelievable thing to stand there and
witness. As the outdoor wind speeds began to
drop and debris now simply tumbled by, someone yelled "Go!" and we shot out of the crash
doors like a SWAT team. We knew we'd find injured people, and carnage, and maybe worse.
Running as a group toward the shredded
pavilions and various unidentifiable objects, I stopped at the first person I found
down in the middle of the street-it was a
man, 30-something years old, and apparently unconscious. I radioed a call for help on
South Temple: "Multiple victims, paramedics needed ASAP." Just then, a torrent of rain
pelted us, following in the shadow behind the
tornado that had raged through downtown
Salt Lake City and now had moved up into
the hills near the capitol.
The tornado had cut a direct path through

the city. It tore whole roof sections off the Delta
Center where the NBA's Jazz play. It blew a dozen windows out of the Wyndham Hotel (now
the Radisson). It buzzsawed both pavilion
structures into a tangle of rubble.
I could see dozens of injured people scattered
across the area. But I could only focus on what I
knew I could do... treat one injured person at a
time, and maybe set up a small triage situation.
I had worked for 14 years as a climbing guide,
but this situation was far beyond anything I had
trained for in the wild. I kept my attention on
the injured man.
He was face-down in the street in a rapidly

spreading pool of blood. I searched for vitals:
He had a pulse, but I could not sense a breathing
rhythm. I checked his airway and discovered a
stick protruding from his mouth. Then I realized it was no stick-it was the temple section
of his eyeglasses. I gently removed the glasses, intact, from his airway. I tried to cover him
up. Even though it wasn't cold, I knew he was
in shock and needed protection from the elements. Random people began to offer me blankets, jackets, ponchos, and visqueen. I used it
all trying to stabilize him.
His breathing rhythm became stronger,but
he did not regain consciousness. He had blunt

We watched in near silence as the horizontal
river of stone and metal crested in
intensity. It was an unbelievable thing to
stand there and witness.
THE GRIM REALITY
The 1999 tornado was one of
the most destructive to hit west
of the Great Plains in the 20th
century and only the second
recorded tornado to hit Utah
that resulted in a fatality.

35th Anniversary 2017 / OUTDOOR RETAILER 41

Outdoor Retailer - July 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outdoor Retailer - July 2017