panoo

Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun
Published: Sunday, July 15, 2007

VANCOUVER — As Jeff Warden trudged through the dense nettles and the thick underbrush near Port McNeill on Vancouver Island Saturday, he warned his young partner not to expect any survivors from the twisted plane wreck nearby.

So when he called out, trying to locate the crash site, he was stunned to hear a response. It came from one of the plane’s passengers — Glenn Olson —who played minor-league hockey last season with an affiliate of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.

Olson, 23, was one of two survivors. The plane’s pilot died at the scene.

“Usually you hear people screaming or calling out in pain,” said Warden, a warrant officer with the Canadian Forces 442 Squadron in Comox, B.C. “I couldn’t even see the crash and this guy responded, ‘Yeah, we’re over here.’ The adrenaline started pumping. I wasn’t expecting survivors.”

Olson and the two others had been heading to the Merritt Mountain Music Festival when their Cessna 172 crashed 24 kilometres southeast of Port McNeill at about noon on Saturday.

When the crash report came through on his pager, Warden flew to the site on a Cormorant helicopter at about 2:30 p.m.

He and his partner, carrying a litter and medical supplies, struggled for 10 minutes “hacking and slashing” through dense, uneven terrain full of nettles and deadfall until they found the crash site.

During the hike in, Warden warned his partner, who was facing his first fatal plane crash, to be prepared for deaths.

“ (The plane) was pretty twisted up,” he said. “Looking at it from the air, it didn’t look good. It’s amazing the two guys survived.”

Exhausted when they arrived, the two rescuers found the pilot, 34, dead at the scene. A 22-year-old passenger who was semi-conscious was lying across Olson, who had a broken right leg and was trapped in his seat.

The 22-year-old was extricated, hoisted up into the chopper and taken to Port Hardy, then transferred to Port McNeill. Warden’s partner went with the helicopter, while Warden remained behind to deal with the 220-pound, six-foot, four-inch Olson.

FULL STORY

Canucks fan 1141

i hope that olson gets better cuz i heard that he was a pretty good player

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LETS GO CANUCKS