By now you’ve probably seen the video: A CHP helicopter hovers over Morro Rock while an emergency responder dangles and spins on a rope as he’s lowered down to a stranded, wetsuit-clad man frozen in a tiny crevice on the 600-foot-tall volcanic mound.
The trapped man was Michael John Paul Banks, 27, of Fresno, who reached viral notoriety last week after his plan to scale the Rock to propose to his girlfriend via the FaceTime video app reached a snag when he got stuck coming down the east side of the cliff. (Banks was arrested later that day for suspected possession of methamphetamine and allegedly being under the influence of a controlled substance.)
But according to Capt. Todd Gailey — the Morro Bay Fire Department firefighter-paramedic dangling on that spinning rope — the cliff rescue was unique for a reason other than Banks’ bungled marriage proposal: It was incredibly dangerous.“I’ve been training on the helicopter for about a decade, and done a handful of rescues from it, but I’d definitely say this is the most challenging, technically, I’ve ever done,” Gailey said Tuesday.