Oregon Brothers Hailed As Lifesavers

Seven-year-old Fletcher Wold of Oregon is being hailed as a hero after he picked up a distress call on his walkie-talkie and set in motion a daring mountaintop rescue, reports CBS News Early Show Anchor Bryant Gumbel.

The signal the boy heard was coming from two injured mountain climbers stranded on Mt. Hood, which was about 80 miles away.

Iain Morris, 23, and climbing partner Jim Clark, 38, were climbing the northwest slope of the mountain Tuesday morning when a sudden slide sent rock plummeting toward them.

The boys called their father. He in turn alerted authorities, who then rescued the climbers by Air Force Reserve helicopter.

Fletcher and his five-year-old brother Parker got the $80 Radio Shack walkie-talkies from their father last Christmas. The radios have only a two-mile range, but from high up Mount Hood, with no obstructions, signals from the climbers' radios could reach even farther than McMinnville, according to Clackamas County Deputy Chris Nolte.

The boys use the walkie-talkies to stay in touch with their parents in rural McMinnville.

What did they hear Tuesday?

"Someone that was calling for help," said Fletcher. "Something about Mt. Hood, the rest was scratchy."

How did he know it was a serious message?

"If they were just kidding, they would be laughing," he told Gumbel, and instead, they sounded scared.

"If it wasn't for Fletcher, they might still be up there waiting for help," Deputy Angela Blanchard said. "He saved their lives."

"Chances are they would have spent the night on the mountain," Nolte, coordinator of the search-and-rescue mission, said on The Early Show. "The weather at the time would have probably dipped the temperatures down to the low 40s...if not down to the freezing mark. In their exposed area on the glacier, they could not have withstood the chance of hypothermia. One has a broken hip. His injury would be life-threatening."

Nolte said the climbers owe their lives to Fletcher Wold and his brother Parker.

"The [sheriff's] office doesn't monitor the walkie-talkie frequencies," he said. We rely upon either cell phones or other vhf radios that we use on the mountain.

"The odds the kids were on the same frequency as the climbers at the same time is a stroke of luck," he added.

The boys got a reward from their father.

"We went and bought a toy and it's a little army thing... it's pretty big," said Fletcher. "And it has a helicopter, jet and a tank."

Does he feel like a hero? "Yeah."

"I'm proud of them," said their father Mike. "They are good kids and they have a good time running around up here in the woods.

"Every time they hear somebody else on the radio, they think they need help," he laughed.

"Dad, that's not true," protested Fletcher.

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