A Deputy's Story From the Golden Gate Cliffside Helicopter Rescue

On March 31, 2024, hiker Cody Cretini climbed up a beachside cliff at Marin County’s Golden Gate National Recreation Area (across the bay from San Francisco). Eventually, the climb became too difficult and Cretini became stuck — clinging to the rockface for dear life while he waited for rescue.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office’s ‘Henry-1’ Bell 407 GXP helicopter was dispatched from Santa Rosa for what became a difficult nighttime rescue. At the controls was pilot Nigel Cooper, while Deputy Sheriff Larry Matelli stood by inside, preparing to descend to Cretini’s location using a 100' rope and haul him aloft.

The deputy’s body-worn GoPro video of this rescue became an international news sensation, both for the harrowing nature of the operation and Matelli’s calm, compassionate approach to managing it while reassuring Cretini. EMS World recently spoke with Deputy Matelli, to get a firsthand rescuer’s view.

EMS World: How did this rescue start for you and your pilot? 

Deputy Matelli: It was Easter Sunday, March 31st. At about 7:40 PM we got a request from the Southern Marin Fire District for a technical rope rescue as details were coming in. The info that we had flying down there was that a gentleman had fallen on the cliff and was about 50 feet down from basically the trail on top of the Alexander battery.  

We were already in the helicopter by the time they were actually dispatching us. So we made it down there in about 24-25 minutes. The fire guys had one person on scene who was up on top of the trail, and then there was their fireboat, which comes right out of Sausalito. They were shining lights on him so we could see exactly where he was. 

I got him on our thermal imager, our FLIR camera, and right away the pilot and I realized how precarious of a situation he was in. So we came up with a quick plan. We train in cliff rescue and night long lines, but we both agreed that we had to take this one kind of slow. Some of the other cliff rescues that I've had, there's usually a platform for me to stand on, and usually, the victim is on some type of little platform, But I knew that this one was clinging to just two small little rocks and digging his toes into the ground. 

EMS World: So how did the rescue play, with you suspended from the helicopter by rope and getting into position behind Cretini on the cliff? 

Deputy Matelli: The only downside to our approach was that I was getting stuck in the rotor wash coming down off of the cliff. So Nigel was having a hard time actually getting me into position. 

Eventually, he was able to get me close enough and as soon as I was able to grab onto the cliff, he slid me right into it. There was only one spot that I could go where I would be directly behind the victim — also knowing that at least I'd be a little bit of a buffer that, if he did start to slide, he'd have to slide into me.

I actually couldn't stand up or get any footing, so I was on my hands and knees kind of over the victim and almost laying on top of him. But I didn't touch him until I was stable enough to start putting him into the horse collar rescue device.

As soon as I realized that I was in a good position, that's when I started to slide him into the rescue device and you can hear me yelling at him, “Don't move, don't move, don't let go.” Because I've had victims in the past where as soon as you come in, they think, “Oh, great, my rescue is here!” And then they try to turn around to grab you. So I did not want him letting go at all.

EMS World: So what happened next?

Deputy Matelli: I fed his left hand through the horse collar first, slid it around his head, fed his right hand through, and then from there on out I gave Nigel our Up signal using a hand signal. Now there was a little bit of a delay because we have a buoy on the bottom of our rope system for water rescue, and it's set at about six feet up from the bottom of the line. So Nigel was actually getting that position so that it wouldn't hit us or knock us off.

As soon as he started pulling a little tension, he just pulled us right off the cliff. You can hear me yelling at the guy to grab his crotch. Basically, that's what we tell the victim, so that way they can't just slide out of the horse collar.

As we started to lift off, I grabbed his hands and forced him down to his waist so he couldn't just lift them up and fall. A lot of people will try to grab onto the horse collar. Obviously, they feel a little bit safer when they're holding onto something, even though they’re not in this case. And so, to prevent that, I just grabbed his hands and locked him down.

Nigel put us right on the trail right above where all the fire guys were trying to set up a rope system in case we had some type of issue. If we had a mechanical problem with the helicopter and couldn't complete the rescue, we had to have a second plan in place. So the secondary plan was to recover him with a high-angle or low-angle rope system. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do it.

EMS World: When did you know that the danger had passed?

Deputy Matelli: Well, as soon as Nigel pulled us away from the cliff, I was completely relieved. It was like, “Okay, the hardest part's done. He's just going to plop us right up onto the top of that trail.” And that's exactly what he did.  

As soon as I lifted the horse collar off of him and the fire guys grabbed him and started walking off, I was pretty ecstatic. After we landed, I walked over to Nigel and gave him a big “Great job!”. Honestly, it's a team effort. He can't rescue anybody because he's flying the helicopter, and I can't get anywhere without him flying me to the victim.