“Don't ask questions. Call the rangers at Wahweap and tell them where I am. I'm going to die.” These are the words heard by Joelle McQuay’s friend in Salt Lake City on April 15, 2023.

McQuay – 43 years old, single mother of three daughters, 18, 19 and 22 years old – is a retired police officer, bodybuilder, bikini competitor and a record-setting bench press champion. Last year, she became a U.S. citizen. She’s set world records for both Canada and the U.S.

Rico, a 3-year-old service dog, came into McQuay’s life about a year ago. Rico, a German Shepherd drug sniffer, is also retired from the police force.

Earlier that day, McQuay and Rico were on their way to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“I'm a retired federal police officer from Canada,” McQuay said, “and I sustained a spinal cord injury on duty, so I'm medically retired. And so, I was actually on my way from Utah, where I live currently, to the Mayo Clinic to get some opinions on my spinal cord. And I thought, why not stop at Wahweap?”

McQuay and Rico visited Lake Powell often and wanted to explore more of the area.

“That was my initial plan, to just go enjoy the outdoors,” McQuay said. “I barely got through the gate where you pay to get into the park and you go past the overlook, and then there’s kind of like a first divot off the road where you can park your vehicle. I was like, ‘Well, this is perfect because I have a protection dog.’ I could go there and hike down, no big deal and no one's around. I can have my dog on the e-collar, and we'll have no problem.”

McQuay brought a camera and tripod on the hike.

“We took our time and took pictures the whole way,” she said. “We hiked down all the way to where the sand was, just south of the marina. We got down there no problem.”

The duo’s problems began on the trek back to her truck.

McQuay said, “My dog refused to climb up the way we came down, which was kind of bizarre because my dog is a retired police dog. We’re super active. He could do it. He just wouldn't for some reason. And he's 80 pounds, so I'm like, ‘Well, I’m not lifting you 30 feet up this easy walkway.’ We're in no rush, so I looked around, and I saw this crevice to the left. And I was like, ‘Well, I wonder if we walk through the crevice if that'll eventually get us out. We walked down this crevice for what seemed like a quarter mile, and it was a dead end. I looked up and it was probably a good 30 feet to the ledge, 40 feet maybe. And I was like, ‘Yeah, that's not going to work.’ And so, we walked back out, and being federal police, I was like, ‘It's still early. It's not a big deal. I'll find another way. It’s not impossible.’”

McQuay continued, “I looked around. On one side of the crevice was this sheer cliff that went forever. So, I was like, ‘That's not going to work.’ So, I looked on the left side, and it looked like it slowly ramped up to the top, but I couldn't see the top.” 

Based on what McQuay could see of the terrain, she made a judgment call to proceed.

“I'm a right-handed shooter,” McQuay said, “so my dog is trained to be on my left side. So, I'm like, this is perfect because I'll be on the cliffside, right? And so, we walk up. It’s pretty easy. Then we get to near the top, and it dead ends. It’s like a 4-foot rock formation that we have to jump to get off or we go into the 30-foot cliff that drops off to the side. And I was like, ‘OK, well, this isn’t convenient.’ I could lift my 80-pound dog 4 feet. Not a big deal. I had one of those leash harnesses that go around my waist. I took off his because he had a prong collar, an e-collar and a tactical collar, I took off the prong and put it on his tactical collar.”

McQuay had Kevlar gloves in her bag and put them on to get better traction on the slippery rock.

“I was grabbing onto the ledge to see if it was secure or not. My dog started sliding toward the 30-foot drop-off, sliding on the sand,” she said.

McQuay quickly jumped and pushed Rico to a safer position and to prevent a 30-foot fall down the crevice cliff. 

“My feet are touching the other wall, so it's probably 4 feet across,” she said. “I'm 5-6. So, I'm pushing him across, but my dog doesn't speak English, so I'm screaming at him in German to get back because if he even goes back 2 feet, he could easily pull me out of that situation. But for some reason, he just froze and laid down. I can't be on my stomach the whole time. He kept sliding toward me, so I instinctively rolled to my back. I have him in, like, a fireman-carry over my shoulders, and I maybe have 3 inches on the one side of the 30-foot drop, and my feet are flat against the wall on the other side. And so, still thinking, like, police. ‘OK, stay calm. The situation is totally under control. I can totally get myself out of the situation.’ Clearly, I couldn't, so I submitted and I'm like, ‘Well, I guess I'm calling dispatch and humbling myself and asking for help.’”

After repeated attempts and dropped calls, McQuay couldn’t reach a dispatcher. Meanwhile, Rico kept sliding farther and farther toward the cliff. 

“His [Rico’s] harness was on my left side,” she said. “So, I was literally holding him with my nondominant arm above my head, holding him with my backpack and my holster in my neck as I'm trying to brace myself from not falling down this 30-foot cliff.” 

McQuay did, however, manage to reach her friend in Salt Lake City with location coordinates and instructions to contact Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (GCNR) rangers.

“So, time kept going by and going by, and I kept calling the dispatch and it kept dropping, kept dropping,” McQuay said. “And I was like, ‘This is terrible. This is a bad situation.’ And time kept going by, and I was videotaping the whole thing. I think it was just the police in me to just document everything. Like, ‘If this is the end, we need to videotape this.’”

McQuay continued, “Then my dog, it was probably 40 minutes in, started to slowly kind of give up and start going down this 30-foot drop. I'm 130 pounds. I'm not a big girl. I don't know how I'm going to keep this dog from falling. And I'm going to go headfirst if he goes. That's when I heard the rangers on the water turn on their sirens. But my dog is a retired police dog, so he got amped up when he heard the sirens. I'm like, ‘Oh, this is what’s going to do me in and I’m going to be done.’ Then I started to panic because I'm not in control. Then I saw the police boat drive away, out of sight. And so, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I'm literally going to die.’ So, then I started screaming for help. And that's when ranger Howe jumped over the top of the cliff.”

Ranger Brock Howe shouted to the rangers in the boat to assist, but McQuay didn’t think she could hold on long enough for them to get there. She estimated it was a quarter-mile hike up the rocks. Brock suggested a trust fall. He would catch her from below. McQuay didn’t like that idea. 

“So, I sort of crab-walked along the crevice to where I could see his hands. He may have been, like, 6 foot 5 inches. He was a pretty tall guy. As soon as I saw his hands, I kind of flipped over onto the rock, and I just sat there,” McQuay said, “and he's like, ‘Dispatch told us it was an old lady with a tired dog. I didn't realize you were going to die.’ He's like, ‘That must have been the longest 15 minutes of your life.”

It wasn’t 15 minutes. When McQuay checked her phone, she hung on the cliff for 50 minutes. 

McQuay resisted when Brock asked her to get on the boat. Her military and police background kicked in and she wanted to walk herself out. The rangers insisted, so she took the boat ride.

Noticing her empty holster, an officer asked McQuay where the gun was. She answered the gun was in her truck. In hindsight, she thought gunshots might get someone’s attention and draw help.

“After I drove through Page Monday, and I took my dog on that same hike because I was like, I'm not going to be scared of this,” McQuay said. “I didn't go down as far as I went, but I'm not going to let Wahweap scare me.”

After the initial interview with McQuay, the Chronicle sent a follow-up question: “You could have probably made it out of there, but it would have meant potentially sacrificing Rico's life?”

McQuay’s answer: “Yes, if I sacrificed Rico, I could have made it out. I wasn’t going to sacrifice my personal protection K9, whose job it literally is to keep me alive and safe. I wasn’t going to let him die. If we fell, I would have died with him. Our bond together is too solid. He’s not my pet. He’s technically my ‘weapon’ and or work K9. He was not going to die on my watch.

“Rico is trained to give his life for me. I wasn’t going to have his death on me. I have to come to the conclusion that if he died, so would I.”