Man who topped state's 14ers dies after fall
John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
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The state's mountain climbing community Tuesday mourned the loss of a 38-year-old Lakewood man who died Monday of injuries sustained in a fall after he and a friend had climbed Mount Humboldt in south-central Colorado.
Friends described David Worthington as a fun-loving and experienced climber who climbed all 54 of Colorado's Fourteeners, mountains with elevations of 14,000 feet or more, in 53 weeks. He did that while working a day job that Worthington described as "government accountant."
"He was very outgoing," said Eric Lord, a Denver climber who had never met Worthington in person, but knew him through 14ers.com, a Web site that serves an online community of climbers.
"He took a lot of things seriously, but not necessarily himself," Lord said of the climber he knew by the online moniker "Talus Monkey."
"As a charismatic, hard-to-forget individual, he touched the lives of many people, most of which he had never met in person," Lord said in a posting on the site.
Custer County Sheriff Fred Jobe said Worthington and a companion had reached the peak of the 14,046-foot mountain in the Sangre de Cristo range southwest of Westcliffe late Saturday.
They spent the night on the mountain and were heading down around 7:30 a.m. Sunday when Worthington slipped and fell about 200 feet down a snow field at an elevation of about 12,600 feet, Jobe said.
Worthington suffered a broken hip and an arm injury in the fall. His hiking companion wrapped him in a sleeping bag and went for help, reaching Westcliffe around noon.
A search-and-rescue team set out, but was deterred by a snowstorm that had settled over the area.
On Monday, a rescue team reached Worthington about 3 p.m. and brought him down. He was rushed to Parkview Hospital in Pueblo.
"When they first got to him, he was talking," Jobe said. "But then he started to go downhill pretty quickly."
He said Worthington died at the hospital about 9 p.m. Monday.
ensslinj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5291
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