Two hikers were rescued by helicopter off Mount Elphinstone on Saturday, Aug. 8 after one of them, a 20-year-old man, fell down Langdale Falls and suffered multiple injuries including a leg fracture and hypothermia.
The man’s hiking partner, a woman of about the same age, called for help on her cellphone just before 3 p.m., according to Gibsons Fire Chief Rob Michael.
Firefighters were the first to reach the injured man just before 4 p.m. Also responding were paramedics and members of Sunshine Coast Search and Rescue (SCSAR), Sunshine Coast RCMP and North Shore Rescue (NSR).
Rescuers soon decided the female hiker also needed to be airlifted from the mountain because she was showing signs of hypothermia.
Members of SCSAR arrived minutes after the firefighters with paramedics from the B.C. Ambulance Service. Members of SCSAR also put in a request for mutual aid helicopter support from NSR, concerned it would be too long of a trek out for the injured hikers.
SCSAR members secured a landing spot for the NSR helicopter at the top of the bypass in Langdale, where paramedics and RCMP also assembled.
“Langdale Falls is a fair hike in,” said Alec Tebbutt, search manager with SCSAR. He estimated it would have taken four to five hours to carry the injured hiker out of the trail, while the helicopter evacuation took just under an hour.
While ground crews worked to treat the hikers, NSR sent out a flight team, including an advanced life support paramedic, to extract the hikers using a 70-metre rope.
Tebbutt said the extraction was successful even though the “long line” was just barely long enough as the helicopter was very close to the tops of the trees.
Rescuers flew out the female hiker to an awaiting ambulance at the top of the bypass in Langdale while teams worked to secure the injured man in a stretcher and prepare him for flight.
The hikers were taken to Sechelt Hospital for treatment, Michael said. Both were from off Coast and didn’t appear to have any life-threatening injuries, he said.
Tebbutt said the coordinated response by several rescue agencies was a great example of the mutual aid system set up in B.C.
“All of the search and rescue teams in the whole province can be called on to help each other,” Tebbutt said.
“We provide help to other teams and we can get help here when we need it. It’s just a really wonderful system.”
