Divine appointment

COEUR d’ALENE — Jason Ruppert and Spirit Nichols were hiking on Tubbs Hill on Tuesday morning when they heard something. A voice, perhaps.

“Did you hear that?" Ruppert asked.

It wasn’t clear and it wasn’t loud. So they stopped, remained quiet and listened.

They heard it again, but still couldn’t quite make it out.

A seconds later, another cry. This time they got it.

“Help.”

Ruppert and Nichols followed the faint voice down a trail about 40 feet toward Lake Coeur d’Alene. They looked around and saw a young woman seemingly stuck on boulders, close to the water.

"There she was,” Nichols said. “Poor thing.”

The woman told them she was free-climbing alone when she slipped, fell a short distance, and her left leg became wedged between two boulders.

Unable to free herself, she propped herself up with her arms and began calling for help.

She said she had been stuck for about two hours before Ruppert and Nichols responded about 8:15 a.m.

“She was a tough cookie,” Nichols said.

While Ruppert comforted the woman and stayed close so she didn’t fall, Nichols called 911 and waited at the top of the trail to direct rescuers in.

Coeur d’Alene Fire Department Fire Marshal Bobby Gonder said firefighters responded, treated the woman and transported her to Kootenai Health.

“I’m happy that we were there,” Nichols told The Press on Tuesday afternoon. “It was very much like a divinely appointed moment to be there at the right time.”

Ruppert, from San Rafael, Calif., was visiting his friend, Nichols, who lives in Coeur d’Alene, when they decided to go for a walk at Tubbs Hill before he flew home that afternoon.

They entered on the trailhead at McEuen Park and were about halfway around when they came across the woman. She was about 20 years old, from Washington and her name was Leah, Ruppert said.

She was in good spirits and even jovial when they reached her, but her condition deteriorated as they waited for help.

“She was laughing, but she was in shock,” Ruppert said. “A lot of pain.”

Before firefighters arrived, the woman became sick and began shaking.

“She went downhill pretty quickly,” Nichols said.

Her leg was swollen and Ruppert believed it was broken. Her position was precarious, he said.

“She was literally right above the lake," said Ruppert, who grew up in Coeur d’Alene.

The woman told them she heard others pass by above, but they did not hear her cries for help.

“I’m happy we listened and heard her,” Ruppert said.

He believes they may have saved her life. The sun was coming around and she was growing weaker. Had more time passed, she may not have had the strength to hang on, Ruppert said.

“We basically kept her alive,” he said.

The woman's condition at Kootenai Health was unavailable.