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Catherine Burnett (Wylie)
LIGHTNING
CLAIMS
Hiking partner injured after pair tried |
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Catherine Anne Wylie saw the dark, ominous cloud and knew it meant danger. Hiking Monday afternoon west of Lewis Lake in Wyoming's Snowy Range, she was wary of the threat of lightning and cautioned her partner, Elden Gregory of Priest River, Idaho, to turn back and head to safety at a lower location. No sooner had they reached what they felt was a safe area when the first, deadly bolt from the storm struck. It hit and killed Wylie and knocked Gregory, who was fifteen feet away, out cold. "The first strike went boom and everything went black," Gregory recalled, speaking by phone from his hospital bed at Ivinson Memorial Hospital in Laramie, Wyoming. "When I came to I found myself lying on the ground, bleeding." Wylie, 51, had gone hiking with Gregory, 61, and her son, Emil Raubach, her daughter, Heidi Combs and Combs' husband, J.B. The group had separated with Heidi Combs returning to the car and J.B. Combs and Raubach pressing on to the summit. Gregory said he and Wylie didn't want to climb to the top and cut their hike short when the clouds started moving in. "We turned around saw the dark clouds coming and she said, "This is no place to be when lightning comes in,'" Gregory said, his voice still shaky. They had been above timberline and had retreated two-thirds of the way down the mountain when the lightning struck. "We thought we were home free," Gregory said. "Exactly what we were trying to avoid is what happened." Gregory said when he awoke it was starting to rain and he could see Wylie unconscious on the ground. "I went over to try and do something but I couldn't hardly move," he said. He said he went over beside her and covered them with a rain poncho. Her dog snuggled between them. He called out to other hikers passing by and sent them for help. When the rescue crew arrived, Wylie was pronounced dead and Gregory was taken to the hospital where he was treated for a broken cheek bone and a shattered wrist. He is scheduled to be released from the hospital Wednesday. Wylie was born in Boulder and grew up in Longmont. She was the daughter of Ralph and Pat Burnett. She graduated from Longmont High School in 1965. She received two degrees from the University of Wyoming and her master's from the University of Northern Arizona, where she met Gregory in 1989. "She was an avid, and underline avid, outdoors person," said her mother, Pat Burnett. Wylie moved around the West, teaching English as a second language at the University of Washington, University of Idaho, and at Northern Arizona. Her children live in Casper, Wyoming, and she was active in the American Association of University Women while living there. Burnett had just returned to Longmont a year and a half ago and had moved to Estes Park last Year. She was the Front Range representative for the International Student Exchange program and had placed several foreign exchange students in area schools; including Longmont, Niwot, and Loveland. She had recently started a job at the Peaceful Valley resort. "She was such a vibrant and vital individual, it was such a shock," Burnett said.
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