12 may 2019
Reader’s Digest
British tourist died after being lost
for nearly six hours in the July heat.
That experience inspired him to
start helping people caught unaware
by Arizona’s unforgiving version of
Mother Nature. “They underestimate
the mountain, and they overestimate
what they can do, and they get them-
selves in trouble,” he told the Arizona
Republic. If a hiker has a flushed
face and is not sweating anymore,
Cullymore says, he reaches into his
insulated orange backpack, pulls out
a frosty bottle, and hands it to theperson. It’s nothing for him to go
through eight waters—which he pays
for himself—in one lap up and down
the mountain. “It’s misleading that
we’re in the middle of the city. You can
die up here, and no one would know.”
One hiker who availed himself of
the proffered water agrees. “You think
you know the heat, but then you get
out here in the desert and it surrounds
you like a blanket,” said Austin Hill,
who was hiking with a high school
friend. They were lucky, he said,
pointing to Cullymore. “We ran into
this Good Samaritan here.” And with
that, the Water Angel goes in search of
another hiker in need.“THEY UNDERESTIMATE
THE MOUNTAIN
AND OVERESTIMATE
WHAT THEY CAN DO.”On the
Cuddle Watch
By Jen McCafferyA
xel winch was born nearly
13 weeks prematurely, and the
doctors didn’t think he’d make
it. He weighed 2 pounds, 12 ounces and
had bleeding in his brain, a hole in his
heart, scoliosis, and vision and hearing
problems. After a week in the hospital
in Grand Junction, Colorado, where
parents Melissa and Adam Winch live,
he developed a life-threatening intesti-
nal condition. Doctors decided to airlift
Axel and Melissa more than 200 miles
to neonatal intensive care at Children’s
Hospital Colorado in Aurora.
Axel stabilized, but his health re-
mained precarious over the next few
weeks as his lungs and lymphatic sys-
tem shut down. “There were many
times we didn’t think he was going
to live,” Adam told To d a y. “He would
die in our arms, and the nurses would
scramble to revive him.”
The roller-coaster ride felt even
more frightening because the fam-
ily was a four-and-a-half-hour drive
from home. Fortunately, backup was
on the way. Melissa, 39, is a police of-
ficer in Grand Junction, and Adam,
46, is a former officer who now owns
a defense training company. The po-
lice department in Grand Junction