A Grim, Difficult Task is Completed

On October 14th, I blogged about the heart-breaking case of 23-year-old, first-year whitewater rafting guide Kimberly Appleson who fell out of a raft during a private trip, became trapped and drowned in the dangerous Frog Rock Rapid on the upper Arkansas River in Colorado in July. Since then, Stew Pappenfort, the Senior Ranger for the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area and my expert consultant for my RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series, has coordinated multiple attempts with multiple search and rescue teams to try to locate and retrieve her body from the underwater caverns in this section of the river.

The latest effort involved the creation of a temporary coffer dam to divert most of the river flow from the area being searched and the use of three rescue dive teams from the Colorado Springs Fire Department to finally locate and extract her body. You can read newspaper articles about the complex operation here and here. Kimberly's family and friends now have closure and so do Stew and the other search and rescue personnel from multiple counties who have been working so diligently since July to bring that closure. I applaud all of the rangers, divers, and rescue personnel involved for a job well done.

A Grim, Difficult Task

Stew Pappenfort, the Senior Ranger for the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, is my expert consultant for my RM Outdoor Adventures series starring whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. In our last phone conversation, he told me some of the frustrations he's been dealing with in the heart-breaking case of trying to recover the body of 23-year-old Kimberly Appleson who became trapped and drowned in the dangerous Frog Rock Rapid on the upper Arkansas River in Colorado. To listen to a Colorado Public Radio interview with him on this subject, go here. I hope Kimberly's family--and Stew--will gain closure soon.