A teenage girl who was separated from her party on the Purgatory Flats Trail while cross-country skiing was retrieved and brought to safety around 9 p.m. Wednesday.
“She’s fine. No medical was needed. We just turned her over to the party she was with, and she’s going to have a good night’s sleep,” said Ron Corkish with La Plata County Search and Rescue.
The party the teenage girl was with searched for about 45 minutes for the missing teen before they made a telephone call to initiate a search, Corkish said.
In addition, the girl had placed a 911 call on her own, and that allowed searchers to get good coordinates for her location. The initial call to report the missing teen came in just after 6:15 p.m., Corkish said.
Searchers were in text contact with the girl through her mobile phone. In addition, the girl, whom Corkish declined to identify, had a flashlight and a whistle, and they aided in quickly locating the teen.
Before bringing the teen out, they stabilized her and brought her warm clothes, Corkish said.
Corkish said light snow from what is expected to be a major storm began falling during the last half hour of the search.
Eight searchers were in the field and three people were involved in communications during the operation, Corkish said.
On Jan. 28, Search and Rescue retrieved a 50-year-old woman from Oklahoma on the Purgatory Flats Trail after the woman became lost while snowshoeing at the Durango Nordic Center.
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