SALINAS - A Salinas firefighter was on a family vacation when he saw a woman fall one hundred feet. What that firefighter did next makes him one of this year's Red Rross heroes.
It was an incredible day of climbing .
Ben Majewski, his brother and his dad were on vacation at the Owens River Gorge outside of Bishop in Inyo County.
Just as they were leaving, Majewski learns from a climber coming up the trail a woman had fallen more than 100 down the cliff while climbing.
"There's always pressure, but what it comes down to is you look at people going through these events it's pretty much the worst point of their life," he said.
The woman fell 40 feet, got tangled in her climbing rope, and then fell 60 more feet.
Majewski found her at the base of the climb wearing her helmet.
"They're very, very serious injuries," he said. "You can have internal bleeding, full paralysis to your life and death."
In the absence of all of his medical equipment, Majewski made use of what he had -- climbing webbing to help secure her to the stretcher and jackets to help immobilize her spine.
He made a makeshift c-collar using those jackets.
"That just keeps her head from moving around," he said.
He directed other climbers in the area, including her climbing partner, to get her out of the remote area as best and as quick as they could.
"By the time the crews got her, we had actually already had her in that stokes basket, secured. It would have really delayed her treatment and getting her to the hospital," he said.
As Majewski reflects on that day two years ago, he says on or off duty he's always a firefighter.
And he'd do it all over again.
"I'd like to think that maybe something I did may have helped her," he said.
On May 19, Majewski, along with several other Central Coast heroes, will be honored at the 2012 Red Cross Heroes Dinner.
It's at 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Monterey.
