5 Saved After Medical Plane Crashes in Snow

Five people, including a 2-year-old girl, were rescued Friday after crashing in an emergency medical plane during a heavy snowstorm and spending a night in rugged terrain, authorities said.

The plane was about half a mile south of the Glenwood Springs airport, said Sgt. Carol Silvius of the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department. Rescue teams reached the area on snow tractors and snowmobiles, she said. The five were taken by helicopter to a hospital in Grand Junction.

None appeared to be suffering from life-threatening injuries, a hospital spokesman said.

Jack Bahr of Clifton and his 2-year-old daughter, Samantha, were being flown in the twin-engine propeller plane to Children’s Hospital in Denver when it crashed Thursday night. Pilot Rick Fowler, flight nurse Theresa Bagshaw and paramedic Brad Brown, all of Grand Junction, were the other survivors.

Fowler radioed the airport in Rifle, about 30 miles west of Glenwood Springs, to say he was having engine trouble and wanted to make an emergency landing. Rifle airport officials never saw the plane. It crashed minutes later.

Glenwood Springs received about four inches of heavy, wet snow during the night, with deeper accumulations in surrounding mountains. The town is in a mountain canyon about 200 miles west of Denver.

David Avrin, a spokesman for Children’s Hospital in Denver, said the girl had a coin lodged in her esophagus.

Elsewhere in Colorado, wind gusting to 60 m.p.h. Friday dashed plans to salvage a Denver television news helicopter that crashed and sank in a reservoir near Ft. Collins.

The pilot was pulled from the water, and two passengers were missing.

Pilot Peter Peelgrane, 46, was in critical condition with possible brain damage at a Ft. Collins hospital. His heart had stopped for at least 30 minutes before he was revived, doctors said.