False crash report runs $30,000 tab, officials say

Man says he thought real call to dispatcher was a 'nightmare'

by Garrett Andrews
Herald Staff Writer

Whatever your definition of a bad dream, this surely qualifies

Officials with the La Plata County Sheriff's Office on Friday set the total cost of responding to a false report of a plane crash in the remote southern end of the county at $30,000, and said the department would seek to recover the full amount from the local man who authorities said was drunk when he made the 911 call Thursday night.

The man, Edward Pretzer, 59, was visibly intoxicated when he was arrested for false reporting to authorities, according to a news release from the sheriff's office. His arrest came after 50 emergency workers and numerous volunteers from multiple agencies responded in 18 vehicles to his call. Sheriff's deputies used GPS data from his cell phone to track him down near the scene.

In jail Friday morning, Pretzer told sheriff's office investigator Dan Patterson he had a nightmare overnight.

He told Patterson he believed he was talking on the phone with his friend, when he actually was on the line with an emergency dispatcher at Durango Central Dispatch.

He is being held at La Plata County Jail on $250 bond.

Dave Abercrombie with the Durango Fire & Rescue Authority said Pretzer called 911 at 8:47 p.m. Thursday to report he had just been in a plane crash and was bleeding profusely from a severed arm.

He told the dispatcher he was a government official with a high-level security clearance who had been on a flight originating in Washington, D.C., with an unknown destination. He said the other eight to 12 people aboard the flight were dead, lying somewhere in the low brush off La Posta Road.

After that, the signal was relayed across police scanners and emergency personnel, volunteers, hospital staff and media representatives from across the region scrambled to respond. DFRA's mobile command post and two night vision-equipped helicopters were deployed to the scene.

The sheriff's office, DFRA, La Plata County Search and Rescue, La Plata County Emergency Management, Southern Ute Tribal Police and the Durango Police Department all responded to the incident in some capacity.

Off-duty personnel were called in to replace those at the scene.

As crews raced up and down the dirt roads in High Flume Canyon, just inside the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, Sheriff's Deputy Barrett Pottoff used GPS coordinates provided by dispatch to locate the caller. When Pottoff found Pretzer in a house off Green Shadows Road, Pretzer said he recently had seen a man's body on the ground about one mile away. Pottoff asked Pretzer to accompany him to the site, and the two drove about 100 yards before Pretzer said to stop.

No wreckage was found.

Pretzer was arrested and booked in county jail for false reporting after he told responders the cell phone number central dispatch captured on caller ID was his.

The $30,000 estimate is a total of the cost of resources, personnel hours and fuel.

According to a news release sent out by the sheriff's office, it likely will seek to recover the full amount through civil court