At a Glance
- Jamie Hunter was struck by a 500-foot boulder traveling 50 mph while hiking Mt. Adams in 2003
- A chain of coincidences – an Army major, a doctor, an ICU nurse, and a heart surgeon – saved her life
- After six months in hospital and multiple surgeries, she plans to return to the mountain
- Why it matters: Her story shows how chance encounters can turn tragedy into survival
Jamie Hunter was 20 years old and an experienced mountaineer when a boulder the size of a building crushed her body and stopped her heart. Against impossible odds, a string of strangers on that Washington mountainside became the exact people she needed to survive. Twenty-one years later, Hunter tells News Of Losangeles she’s ready to face the peak again.
The Impact That Changed Everything
On a clear September day in 2003, Hunter joined 11 fellow University of Portland students for a climb up Mt. Adams. She never saw the 500-foot boulder that broke loose above her. Traveling an estimated 50 miles per hour, it slammed into her back and launched her 25 yards down the slope at 10,000 feet.
“I was without oxygen for eight minutes when I was brought in,” she says. “I was dead on arrival and resuscitated.”
In the chaos, the first climber to reach her was Army Maj. Greg Nyberg. He immediately called the Washington Air National Guard and requested an emergency helicopter. Physician Kelly McGrath and ICU nurse Susan Tyler arrived next, stabilizing Hunter while the chopper fought high-altitude winds.
During the flight to Portland’s Legacy Emanuel Hospital, Hunter’s heart quit. In another twist of fate, heart surgeon Jonathan Hill stood in the ER when the medics burst through the doors. He opened her chest and manually massaged her heart until it restarted.
Dr. William Long, who led the ICU team, told News Of Losangeles in 2005: “It took a series of miracles to bring her back.”
Years of Rebuilding
Hunter spent six months hospitalized. She returned to the University of Portland, studied abroad in Austria, graduated, married, and moved to Utah. Yet her body continues to catalog the damage.
- Traumatic brain injury discovered in October 2024
- Arthritis in left knee from impact
- Total knee replacement on right leg in 2021
- Total shoulder replacement in spring 2024
- Loss of left glute muscle affecting balance and endurance
“I try to always be rehabbing my body,” she says. Cognitive challenges-memory lapses, organizing thoughts, recall issues-have shadowed her since 2003.
The Climb She Still Needs to Make
Despite ongoing surgeries and therapy, Hunter refuses to surrender the activities that define her: biking, skiing, hiking. Fear, she insists, is absent.
Her top bucket-list goal is a return to Mt. Adams, this time accompanied by the same Dr. Kelly McGrath who held her hand in the helicopter two decades ago.
“He’s the doctor that flew with me in the helicopter and went into the operating room with me,” she says, calling that day “fateful” because the ideal rescuers appeared at the ideal moment.
Piece by Piece
Preparation is constant. Hunter works on strength for downhill skiing and cognitive drills to sharpen her mind. She describes progress as “piece by piece and conquering one thing at a time.”
The mountain waits. So does the woman who once died on its slopes and came back to tell the tale.
