Author: CNN Newsource

By Michael Spencer

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    ARVADA, Colorado (KCNC) — A group in Colorado is helping people recover from life-altering events in a way unique to the state: through hockey.

On Wednesday mornings at the Apex Center in Arvada, you can find Jonny Landis doing what he loves best.

“Just being out here with the guys, and shoot the breeze with them on the bench and talk trash with them on the ice is just so much fun,” says Landis.

His skate is part of Dawg Nation Hockey’s Hockey Heals group. The group gives people who have overcome life-altering events a chance to skate.

“It’s really cool that none of us should be out here playing, but we all are,” says Landis.

They are skates that Jonny doesn’t take for granted. In 2019, during his freshman year at the University of Colorado, Landis fell 42 feet off a balcony and landed on the pavement. He suffered more than 160 skull fractures, and doctors told his family that he likely wouldn’t make it.

“When (my family) got to Boulder Community Health, the emergency room doctor didn’t want to put me on the flight for life, but my mom and sister convinced him,” recalls Landis.

He spent the next 60 days in a coma and spent the next several months in the hospital and rehab.

Earlier this month, seven years after doctors told his family that he likely wasn’t going to make it, Landis walked across the stage at CU receiving his diploma.

“It felt surreal, and it didn’t feel like it was truly happening. It [was] so amazing,” recalls Landis.

With his degree in hand, Landis is currently interning with Dawg Nation Hockey and has big goals for his future.

“What I would love to do long term is, I would love to be able to sell some of the stuff that saved my life, like shunts. I think that would be really full circle,” Landis shared. “I consider myself lucky to be alive, but I also think God has bigger plans for me.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Spencer Wilson

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    WOLCOTT, Colorado (KCNC) — A Colorado climber who survived a perilous fall near Wolcott in winter of 2025 is now speaking publicly about it. That includes the massive rescue effort that followed. It also involves the new emergency whole blood program in Eagle County that she believes allowed her to survive and preserve her quality of life afterward.

Josie Mudjitaba had more than a decade of climbing experience before heading out for what was supposed to be a normal climbing day last November.

“With any sport, there’s risk and things like that,” Mudjitaba told CBS Colorado. “But this really doesn’t happen in terms of pulling off a rock (and) a rock severing the rope.”

She said the fall happened after she climbed above a bolt on the route.

“The last thing I remembered was climbing,” Mudjitaba said. “… I fell about 40 feet.”

Mudjitaba said she was fortunate the ground below her was steep instead of flat, and that likely contributed to her successful recovery. Still, her injuries were severe.

“I pretty much fell on my left side,” Mudjitaba said. “So six fractured bones, fractured pelvis, sacrum, my rib, and then I guess I hit my shoulder so hard that it fractured several bones on my shoulder as well. And then of course my head suffered a concussion, (traumatic brain injury).”

Mudjitaba said she drifted in and out of consciousness while rescuers, who were nearly 45 minutes away from her location, worked to reach her so the could eventually stabilize her.

“It was really in and out,” Mudjitaba said. “I just felt like I couldn’t move, but the smallest movement also provided extreme pain.”

Nearly 30 rescuers responded to help bring her out of the remote climbing area — made up of Eagle County Paramedics Services, Vail Mountain Rescue Group and local firefighters. Paramedic Chris Rauzi with ECPS said dispatch information immediately raised concerns.

“We have a female patient in her 40s who is conscious and breathing, but has significant injuries and is unable to walk,” Rauzi recalled when he spoke to CBS Colorado. “So, with that, I’ve got alarm bells already going off in my head.”

Rauzi said the remote location made the call even more challenging, a familiar challenge working in the mountainous region.

“Any type of big trauma like this, especially when it’s going to be a prolonged hike to get in and a prolonged amount of time to access the patient, it’s a good idea to bring the most pertinent tools that you have,” Rauzi said. “And we just got whole blood.”

Eagle County paramedics now carry whole blood units in specialized coolers on both the east and west ends of the county since October 2025, allowing crews to begin advanced trauma care before patients ever reach a hospital.

“Basically, just bringing a higher level of care to people in the field,” Rauzi said. “Getting them that care that they need faster without that time delay from where we find them to arriving at the hospital.”

It’s something crews find especially helpful with limited medical expertise in local hospitals that are occasionally not equipped to handle the level of trauma seen in accidents like Mudjitaba’s.

Mudjitaba says her condition deteriorated as rescuers prepared to lower her from the scene.

“By the time they were ready to lower me, my vitals kind of changed,” she said. “My blood pressure dropped. My heart rate went up. I became really lethargic.”

Mudjitaba said the whole blood she received in the field likely changed the trajectory of both her survival and recovery.

“It saved my life,” she said. “Without it, maybe I could have survived. Who knows? But my vital organs could have collapsed, and my recovery could have been prolonged.”

Mudjitaba said mountain rescues come with a difficult reality in rural Colorado. Advanced trauma care can be hours away.

“We were two hours away just to get to the helicopter, and then another half an hour to get to Denver,” Mudjitaba explained. “So time wasn’t on my side, and whole blood kind of bridged that gap.”

“People just think about life or death,” she added. “But oftentimes we have to think about when you do survive, what does that look like? It’s not just life or death. It’s the quality of that life.”

For Rauzi, the program represents a major leap forward for mountain emergency medicine. “I’ve been working as an EMT and paramedic for about 12 years,” Rauzi said. “There’s definitely been some cases out there where I’d just wish I know what the patient needs, but I don’t have it. But, now, we do.”

Eagle County officials said locally donated blood can directly support local hospitals and emergency crews. Upcoming blood drives are scheduled from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 20 at the Gypsum Recreation Center, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, May 22 at the Edwards station for Eagle County Paramedic Services. More information is available through the Eagle County Paramedic Services website.

Before the fall, Mudjitaba was already a regular blood donor herself. Her life-changing experience and her reception of whole blood, thanks to the team who saved her, has changed her relationship with blood donation forever.

“It’s very different,” she said. “I never thought that I would be on the receiving end.”

Now, she says she has firsthand experience with how important those donations can be.

“I’m grateful for it,” Mudjitaba said. “They just started the program, and I’m one of the first few recipients for it, and I needed it, and it saved my life.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Julia Sandor

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    ELKO COUNTY, Nevada (KSTU) — It was a bit of luck for one pilot that rancher Jordan Brough and his friends knew how to navigate the snowy mountains.

“I saw on the alert, it said it was a pilot, crashed plane. These guys were sitting next to me, and I went back in, and I said, ‘Do you guys want to go look for a plane?'” recalled Brough, who also serves as a volunteer firefighter.

For the three ranchers and local Search and Rescue teams, technology that nearly everyone carries with them helped locate the plane crash in the remote parts of the East Humboldt Mountain Range on Sunday. The airplane had hit a mountain at more than 10,000 feet, but luckily, the pilot’s iPhone crash notification was sent to dispatch.

The crash detection feature can be found on the iPhone 14 and newer models and allows GPS locations to be shared with the local dispatch center, which can help search and rescue teams respond fast when someone is in need.

“We couldn’t see anything for a long time, and we couldn’t hear the guy, so we almost turned around, but we hollered one more time, and we heard him, so that kept us going,” said Ballard Ranches manager Braden Whitaker, who was among those who went out to search for the plane.

“I don’t think we would have found him that day if it hadn’t been for those coordinates,” added Jacob Taylor, owner and operator of the Antelope Peak Ranch.

From the mountains to the desert, search and rescue teams are seeing technology advancements to help them during emergency operations.

“People maybe have a watch or a phone or something. It senses the impact, and it calls, activates the 911 system,” explained Scott Solle, Vice Commander, Grand County Search and Rescue. “We don’t always know what we’re going to. Sometimes it’s a false alert, but sometimes it’s not. That’s why we have to treat every mission as if we’re going to help someone.”

This time of year, Solle and his team are busy, and tools such as Starlink, inReach, or an iPhone help them do their job.

“I think having one of those things is key because there’s just so much terrain that is not covered by a cell provider,” he shared.

But Solle added that the technology only works if you know how to use it, so everyone should be prepared and know what to do in an emergency. Just like this weekend in the Nevada mountains showed, one notification can make all the difference.

“Whether you’re flying a plane or you’re exploring or hunting,” said Taylor, “I think that makes, from what I’ve seen yesterday, that could be a life changer, 100%.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Cameron Polom

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    SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (KNXV) — A 9-year-old from Scottsdale is turning backyard curiosity and desert adventures into a mission to protect wildlife, and people across the country are starting to notice.

Luke has climbed into the top 1% of the nationwide Jr. Ranger Competition, a contest supporting the National Wildlife Federation that celebrates kids passionate about conservation and the outdoors. If he wins, he gets to go on a real-life adventure with wildlife conservationist Jeff Corwin.

But what makes Luke stand out isn’t just the ranking; it’s the way he’s using his growing voice to inspire other children to care about the planet around them.

Whether he’s hiking Arizona trails, rescuing small animals, climbing trees with his dog Booker, or sharing wildlife adventures on his budding YouTube channel, Luke approaches nature with the excitement of a kid and the heart of a true conservationist.

His love for animals, especially parrots, has become the foundation for a message centered on curiosity, stewardship, and protecting wildlife for future generations.

His family says the competition has become less about winning and more about encouraging kids to unplug, explore outdoors, and realize they can make a difference too.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Greenlee Clark

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    NORTHWEST BOISE, Idaho (KIVI) — The effort to solve a growing rat problem in the Treasure Valley appears to be causing new problems of its own — and one Boise neighbor is speaking out after his cat died from rat poison.

Kellen Williams has lived in Boise for 21 years, growing up in Ketchum, Idaho. He and his family intentionally avoid using poisons of any kind, relying instead on spiders to mitigate pests and cats to mitigate rodents. Williams says his cat, Jekyll, had always been a mouser, keeping rodents away from his Boise home.

Jekyll was 12 years old and had grown up alongside Williams’ oldest child, who was a toddler when they got the cat. Named after Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — sweet most of the time but occasionally feisty — Jekyll was mostly blind from fighting with neighbor cats, but was still a reliable mouser who mostly stayed in the backyard.

But earlier this month, an emergency vet visit revealed Jekyll had been exposed to rat poison. After about 36 hours of not eating or drinking, Williams took Jekyll to Intermountain Animal Hospital — other clinics like Cat Doctor were fully booked.

“They did a full blood workup, and his blood wasn’t clotting; he was bleeding internally from poison,” Williams said.

The doctor delivered the news after about 20 minutes of waiting. Williams said it was a shock.

“We didn’t do an autopsy or anything like that, so I don’t know if it was from eating a rodent or eating poison directly. But that it was really unlikely, she said, that it was from something else,” Williams said.

Jekyll went from showing symptoms to passing away in just three days. The family buried him on Mother’s Day.

Williams said he has noticed pest control companies visiting his neighborhood 3 to 4 times in the last two months, including twice in the last three weeks. Jekyll died three to four days after one company was in the neighborhood. Williams noted the company claimed their poison doesn’t have tertiary effects, but said he wasn’t sure how that works.

Williams posted about Jekyll’s death on Facebook and Nextdoor. The Nextdoor post received some negative responses, with people suggesting he should keep his cats inside. He felt that response missed the point.

“There’s a huge impact to a much wider array of animals, not only pets, but all the good rodent mitigators that live here,” Williams said.

He specifically mentioned Idaho Birds of Prey as an organization that has worked hard to recover raptor populations, which are now at risk from rodenticide poisoning.

Since Jekyll’s death, Williams also found a dead squirrel in his yard with no marks of attack, which he suspects may also have been poisoned. The family was considering getting two more kittens before Jekyll’s death, but is now reconsidering.

Williams recommends snap traps as a safer alternative to poison, noting they kill instantly and have a much lower risk to non-target animals. He also raised concerns about the cumulative environmental impact.

“As more people live here in Boise, the more poison and the more things we put on our grass and our yards, the more that ends up in the river and in the rest of the environment that we all depend on,” Williams said.

Local veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Norman, owner and medical director of Ada Animal Hospital, has been a veterinarian for 10 years and has been in the field since she was 15. She has treats poisoning cases at her practice and warned that some varieties have no antidote.

“Depending on how much they ate, we really are just trying to race against the clock,” Norman said.

Norman explained that there are two main types of rat poison. Anticoagulant rat poisons have better treatment options, though she emphasized they are still not safe. Other types have no true antidote, making them far more dangerous.

She warned that rat poison is designed to attract rats, but dogs, cats, and wildlife find it just as appealing. She has seen dogs chew through heavy-duty plastic containers to get to rat poison stored inside, because the poison smells and tastes good to them.

“My biggest concern is always for our furry, you know, family members, our cats and dogs, and the other wildlife. So, my biggest thing is just knowing what products you’re using,” Norman said.

Norman also warned about secondary poisoning: a cat or other wildlife can be poisoned by eating a rat that has already ingested poison, if the concentration in the rat is high enough. The rat may run off and die in a different yard before the cat finds and eats it.

If you think your pet got into any type of rat poison or pesticide, Norman said to act immediately.

“Call your vet or just get them to the nearest vet. Because the sooner we can get them assessed and decontaminated, the better chance we have for them all,” explained Norman.

Norman recommends asking pest control companies for the specific product name and active ingredients, not just whether it is “pet safe,” so your vet can look up the exact treatment protocol if needed. She also recommends notifying your neighbors when pest control is coming so they can keep their pets inside.

“Be nice to your neighbors’ pets. We all live here, and it’s nice to have animals in the neighborhoods and things like that, um, and try to look out for the wildlife that makes Idaho so special,” Williams said.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.