- Officials said hikers left their injured friend behind in the Grand Canyon to keep backpacking.
- But the injured hiker told Insider that was false and his friends had done everything right.
Officials said a hiker who was injured in Grand Canyon National Park last weekend had been left behind by his friends after they called in a rescue for him — but the hiker in question says that's not at all what happened and his friends have been "unjustly vilified in the media."
"In my view, my friends did all the exact right things. They got me rescued," William Formanek told Insider.
Mohave County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue published a statement Saturday saying it'd rescued a 63-year-old man who got injured while hiking down Kanab Creek. The statement said the man was hiking in a group of five when he got injured and the group used a satellite-capable device to call for rescue.
"Once contact for help using the Apple device was confirmed by the hiking group, the other four hikers left with the Apple device and continued on their backpacking adventures — leaving the injured hiker behind alone," the statement said.
Formanek said his friends did everything they could to get him rescued quickly and he was "baffled" by how the story got mixed up.
News outlets picked up the story about an injured hiker left behind by his friends with apparent summit fever — prompting angry comments on media sites and in hiking Facebook groups about the behavior of the other group members.
But Formanek says that narrative is simply false.
He said the group of five was a few days into a seven-day backpacking trip when, on Friday, Formanek and one other group member decided to hike farther south down Kanab Creek than the others, prompting the group to split up.
Formanek says he's hiked thousands of miles in the Grand Canyon, even down that exact creek several times, and has climbed more than 40 summits over the years. He said he felt breaking up the group was an acceptable level of risk but noted that when hiking alone, he would usually carry his own emergency device.
"I've hiked hundreds and hundreds of miles with no incident," he said. "I just had bad luck this time."
Formanek said he and his companion eventually turned around to head back to their campsite. He recalled that at about 2:30 p.m., he fell while crossing the creek, struck a large boulder, and dislocated his shoulder. The pain was severe, and Formanek was unable to continue hiking in the rugged terrain, he said.
"Neither my friend nor I had a satellite-capable emergency device, but those in the group ahead of us did. Hence, with my blessing and encouragement, my friend continued to hike, hoping to catch the others before dark and request a rescue," he said.
Formanek said his friend probably hiked 3 or 4 miles over challenging terrain to catch up with the others, at which point they used an Apple iPhone's satellite feature to send an emergency request for help. It was about 5 p.m. when the request was sent, he said.
The Mohave County Sheriff's Office said it received the request at about 6 p.m. and initiated search and rescue.
"As the helicopter arrived on scene, it was very dark with tall canyon walls surrounding Kanab Creek — providing a tight and limited landing area for the helicopter," the sheriff's office said, adding that the helicopter was finally able to land about a quarter mile from where Formanek was.
The rescue crew hiked down to Formanek and was able to assist him to the helicopter. He was then transported to Flagstaff, Arizona, for treatment.
"I can't praise them enough on the work they did," Formanek said of the rescue crew, adding that he was extremely grateful.
But he still doesn't know how the miscommunication happened. He said he never told the rescue crew that his friends had just left him. He also said he explained to the rescue crew why they had been given two sets of GPS coordinates: one was where the satellite message came from and the other was where his friends estimated he was.
If the search-and-rescue message was sent while his friends were with him and then they left him, as the post from the sheriff's office said, then there would only be one set of coordinates, Formanek said.
The sheriff's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Formanek said he spoke with someone at the sheriff's office on Wednesday to clarify what had happened. On Wednesday afternoon, the sheriff's office updated its initial post to say the group had been separated at the time of the injury and the one friend hiked ahead only to call for a rescue.
But Formanek told Insider the damage had already been done.
"They're being vilified as idiots and poor friends and all that inaccurate stuff because of that one line in the MCSO post," he said, adding that not everyone who'd seen the original post would see the correction.
"Personally, I don't care if people are criticizing me. I know I did, and my friends did, all the right things," Formanek said. "The fact that my friends are having to take this criticism when they did everything right, I really feel bad for them. It's disheartening."
Formanek emphasized that the friend who left him to get help did everything right, adding that the following day, the friend hiked all day and even into the evening just to get back out of the canyon so he could travel to Formanek.
"If my friend had just stayed with me, it might've been one or two days before I got rescued," he said, adding that in some circumstances it would make sense to leave an injured hiker to get help. "There was nothing my friend could do for me. The best thing he could do was meet up with the others."
Correction: September 20, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated when Formanek corrected the record with the Mohave County Sheriff's Office. He talked to the office Wednesday, not Thursday.