Michael Fleeman - Over the Edge: A True Story of Marriage, Money and a Shocking Death

I just drove off the side of the mountain. We were coming down.

You were driving down the mountain? the dispatcher asked.

We were coming down. And I was braking. And it wouldnt stop, he said, the hysteria returning. It wouldnt stop! He started sobbing. It wouldnt stop!

Calm down, the dispatcher said. I need you to calm down so we can get you some help.

But he didnt calm down.

Sir, she said, calmly but firmly, I need you to take a deep breath. We need to get you some help.

But all he did was shout. Rinette! Rinette! he cried. It wouldnt stop! It wouldnt stop!

In the stillness of the mountain night, a blue Ford F-150 pickup truck stopped at the end of the road, the headlights sweeping across the gate blocking off the parking lot to the Slide Mountain Ski Area. It was just before midnight on the last day of May 1998 and dirty patches of snow remained, soon to be washed away by the spring rains. The only lights came from the cab of the pickup and the stars. A man got out of the truck. He was in his forties, stocky, with bushy eyebrows. He wore blue jeans, a dress shirt, a jacket, canvas shoes, gloves and a green-and-white baseball cap with Incline written across the front. He lit a thin Cuban cigar and paced. He raised his voice and profanity punctured the night.

In time, the man got back into the truck and drove from the ski area, with the radio on, the window rolled down and the heater off. Heading down the 1950s-era road, rarely used in the skiing off-season, the man drove a few hundred feet to a broad, banking left turn, where the road was wide enough to pull over to the side, next to the guardrail that separated the pavement from the side of a cliff. From this precipice, there was a sweeping view of the Washoe Valley, some 3,000 feet below, where on this clear night the lights of Sparks and Washoe City twinkled to the right.

Next to the guardrail a windsock hung, limp. By day, this is a jumping-off place for hang-gliding enthusiasts, who leap from the edge past the guardrail and catch the updrafts created when the sun warms the valley floor. A skilled flier can ride these thermals all day, soaring thousands of feet, over the ledge, and land near the shores of Lake Tahoe.

Had the man steered the truck on the gentle left and gone past the turnout, he would have seen in the valley below the blazing blanket of lights of Reno. He never made it.

A tremendous crash shattered the mountain quiet. Metal slashed through metal, wood splintered, glass shattered, as the truck barreled through the guardrail and soared off into the vast nothing before striking the rocky slope 100 feet down, then tumbling. The camper shell went flying off as the truck cut a swath down the hill, scattering clothes and suitcases and paperback books and a pair of plastic cans that spewed gasoline.

The truck came to a thunderous halt 700 feet below the guardrail, lying upside down and facing uphill in the rocks and a clump of manzanita bushes.

Hundreds of feet back up the slope, the man lay on his stomach, clinging to a branch with one hand and his cellular phone with the other, screaming hysterically to the 911 operator, then shouting, Rinette! Rinette!

Below him, in the mangled remains of the overturned truck, dangling upside down from a seatbelt, was his wife.

Nevada Highway Patrol.

It was just after midnight at the Reno dispatch center. Michelle Lewis was working the graveyard shift, sitting in front of her two computer screens at the dispatch console. She wore two headsets, one delivering 911 calls into her right ear, the other transmitting dispatches from patrol cars and other emergency vehicles into her left ear. This night, Lewis was handling calls from the rural sections of Washoe County while her partner, Paula Ryssman, fielded calls in the urban areas in and around Reno.

In her right ear, her 911 ear, Lewis could hear a man panting uncontrollably.

Sir, sir, Lewis said in a measured voice into her headset mouthpiece. Calm down. Where are you?

Im on the side of the mountain!

Sir, sir, she said. I need you to calm down. Where are you?

He panted. Ski resort. My wife is in the car.

Sir, where are you?

Im on the side of the mountain.

Youre on the side of the mountain? asked Lewis, exasperation creeping into her voice. Reno is surrounded by mountains. What mountain is that? Sir, we need to get somebody out to help you. You need to tell me where youre at. I need you to take a couple of breaths and then tell me where youre at.

Her computer screen told her only that he was calling from a cellular phone. It didnt give her a location.

Im on the side of the mountain off the edge, he said. My car went down the hill. My wife is in the car.

OK, well get someone right out there, said Lewis. Youre onWhich mountain are you at?

Up by the ski resort.

Up by the ski resort?

Yes, maam.

OK, hang on the line. Lewis knew that cell phone reception worked only from one mountain with a ski area: Mount Rose, about 25 miles southwest of Reno. Cell phones didnt work from the other resorts in South Lake Tahoe or Heavenly Valley. Sir, are you by Mount Rose?

Yes.

How far from the ski resort are you?

Its the Slide Mountain area. Its not Mount Rose. Its Slide Mountain.

Slide Mountainthe Slide Side or East Bowl as locals call itis on the eastern side of the Mount RoseSki Tahoe Resort and accessible by a different entrance from the main ski area, a distinction that got lost in the early hysteria, complicating the rescue operation.