A heroic doctor who lost her daughter to a slow painful disease has revealed how she now risks her own life to save hikers and climbers stranded on mountains.
Broken bones, head injuries, avalanches, plane crashes and more – Renata Lewis, 50, of Whistler, Canada, has seen it all during 25 years of rescue missions in the British Columbia mountains.
Each call can be more hair-raising than the last and often requires her to ‘long-line’ in, which involves hanging thousands of feet in the air from a helicopter.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Lewis described how it is the memory of her brave child that keeps her going in the most terrifying of conditions.
Renata Lewis, 50, of Whistler, lost her daughter Misha (pictured together) five years ago to dyskeratosis congenita, a genetic form of bone marrow failure that caused her body to stop producing blood aged three
Lewis has been a doctor for 25 years and done emergency search and rescue for nearly as long. She has saved countless people from the mountains of British Columbia, Canada
Lewis, who has one surviving daughter, said she begins every interaction in the same way: ‘I’m Dr. Lewis, are you okay?’ (pictured: Lewis pulling a patient into the helicopter on a long-line)
For Lewis, the only time she has ever found herself helpless was when her daughter was diagnosed with dyskeratosis congenita, which is a rare, genetic form of bone marrow failure that caused her body to stop producing blood aged just three.
After years of chemotherapy, blood transfusions, bone marrow transplants, and more, Lewis said they reached a point where nothing more could be done.
She then recalled the agonizing moment her daughter asked her to ‘let her die’ and passed away in her arms five years ago.
Now, Misha’s fight for life fuels her mother during daring rescue missions on the mountaintops in British Columbia.
‘Mountain rescue really helped me give good to the world, and fix things, and be successful while knowing that my daughter was slowly dying over the years,’ she told DailyMail.com.
‘It was really hard, but the balance in it, and the ability to go and help people and rescue them and give them life and help them survive certainly helped me personally a lot to get through that time.’
Lewis, who has one surviving daughter, said she begins every interaction in the same way: ‘I’m Dr. Lewis, are you okay?’
But some rescue missions are more haunting than others.
Lewis, who is the face of a new Figs campaign, said her scariest encounter was in the late summer of 2020 while rescuing a male climber who had fallen down a couloir on Wedge Mountain and was stuck 9,500 feet up.
By the time the call came in, it was late in the day and their window to be able to use the helicopter was dwindling. To make matters worse, a storm was rolling in.
Lewis and her team used a long-line to propel down from a helicopter that was hovering in midair near the scene with just packs of gear on their backs. This meant she had to leave behind some ‘key’ medical tools.
Upon reaching the man, he was unconscious with broken bones and a head injury – and was ‘not doing well at all.’
‘I thought he actually could die in our hands there,’ Lewis told DailyMail.com.
‘And just as we were trying to figure out what we were going to do and I was working on him medically, we heard the first bolt of lightning and thunder come through right above us and we also started to get snow.’
Surrounded by metal objects, they were walking targets for lightning bolts.
But the weather only got worse and the helicopter was unable to return to them, leaving them stranded for the next six to seven hours.
‘We sat there as the clouds came up and they enveloped us,’ Lewis said. ‘You couldn’t have scripted this movie to have more drama.’
Lewis recalled the agonizing moment her daughter asked her to ‘let her die’ and passed away in her arms five years ago
Lewis – who is the face of a new Figs campaign – said her scariest encounter was in the late summer of 2020 when she was rescuing a male climber who had fallen down a couloir on Wedge Mountain and was stuck 9,500 feet up
By the time the call came in, it was late in the day and their window to be able to use the helicopter was dwindling. To make matters worse, a storm was rolling in (pictured: the 2020 rescue)
The man was unconscious and ‘not doing well at all.’ He had broken bones, chest and head injuries and was in such bad shape Lewis said she didn’t know if he’d make it out alive
After terrifying ordeal, the man was taken to the hospital where he miraculously survived. He even sent her a thank you note and a photo of himself from hospital
She continued: ‘I thought: “We’re going to lose this guy here, and then we might even be in danger ourselves.” I was very worried about getting struck by lightning.’
To keep the man alive, they huddled under a tarp, using their body heat to warm him. They also elevated his legs to help with blood circulation and used pelvic and abdominal wraps.
‘I had only what was in my backpack to keep him alive,’ she said. ‘You have to start to be very smart and use what you’ve learned at very basic levels of anatomy and physiology to try and turn these things around when you don’t have technology with you. Time is almost never on our side.’
After several hours, a small window opened up for the pilot to safely fly back to them. They long-lined her and the patient back to the helicopter, while the rest of the rescue party hiked to a lower point on the mountain.
After terrifying ordeal, the man was taken to the hospital where he miraculously survived. He even sent her a thank you note and a photo of himself from hospital.
Lewis said that back at base, she and her crew, who are all volunteers, have a wall of thank-you notes from people they have rescued.
She has even met up with some victims after they have healed.
One meeting she said she still remembers to this day is with a female pilot she saved after a plane crash in the Coast Mountains.
The pilot had been transporting five mountain bikers to a remote destination when she struck the mountains in a fog bank in July a few years ago.
Lewis rushed to the scene where she expected to find mass casualties.
Lewis often encounters novice mountaineers and reminds people to always have a safety plan: ‘You are your own help until help arrives’
Lewis has received thank you notes from people she has saved over the years
As she arrived, the doctor could see two people standing near the crash site, one with a shirt tied around his head to stop the bleeding as another person held them.
‘We train for that as a team, but we don’t train for it on our own, and here I was on my own,’ she told DailyMail.com.
When she rounded the other side of the plane, she found the pilot lying unconscious on the ground under the wing, with others surrounding her.
‘[She] looked horrible. I thought she was about to die,’ Lewis said.
Lewis immediately sprang into action and instructed healthier passengers to help her with the ‘most critical interventions’ until more help arrived.
Thanks to her fast thinking, the pilot and all the mountain bikers survived.
A week and half after she got out of the hospital, the pilot invited Lewis to lunch.
‘She came hobbling in on crutches, [with] black eyes, bruised up, puffy face, and few broken bones,’ Lewis recalled. ‘And she was so thankful.’
But Lewis said what she needed most was encouragement.
‘She needed that encouragement from another woman in aviation to say: “You know what, these things do happen, as much as we never want them to happen, and as much as we train for them not to happen.
‘”But now you are your own expert on how never to do this again, and you should use that skill and go forward with it and teach other pilots, and don’t be embarrassed. Be open and teach others, and think about how to mitigate risk.
‘”And trust me, if you stick with it, you’ll you’ll be a far better pilot for it. So just keep going.” And she really appreciated that,’ Lewis said.
Lewis’ daughter Misha’s fight for life fuels her mother during daring rescue missions on the mountaintops in British Columbia
The mother-of-two said meeting former patients is often ‘an important part of the loop to close.’
‘All search and rescue in the mountains are volunteers. And you know, we get money donations and we get in-kind donations to support our team. But I think sometimes people just want the human-to-human moments to say thank you so much for saving my life or saving my daughter’s life, or saving my husband’s life,’ she said.
‘And those are really, really special, because that’s what keeps us going to.’
The most common rescues Lewis is called in to help with are avalanches, lost hikers, mountain biker and paraglider accidents – as well as general medical calls.
‘Most of those who find themselves in sticky situations are those who ‘aren’t fully aware of their skill set or [have] knowledge of the mountains,’ she warned.
‘It would be great for them to learn more and have more knowledge around that before going into that sort of playground. But most of the people are oblivious to the risks that they face when they go into the mountains, and we don’t realize how quickly things can turn’.
Lewis, who grew up in the mountains and is a guide, now even teaches Hollywood actors how properly perform her type of work for movies.
Her advice to anyone venturing into the mountains is to always ‘make a plan’
‘You must know what you’re doing, where you’re going, and what happens if something goes wrong. That is very critical,’ she told DailyMail.com. ‘Time in the mountains is so critical.
‘You are your own help until help arrives.’
