North Shore Rescue air-lifted an injured mountain biker from the forests above Reed Road, near Gibsons, directly to Vancouver General Hospital Friday evening.
Sunshine Coast Search and Rescue was paged out at about 6 p.m. Friday for the mountain biker who had what initially appeared to be a broken collarbone but later expanded to possibly include a broken femur, said SAR manager Stuart MacDonald.
Following rescuers' hour-long trek up to the injured biker –– after already driving up some rough and bumpy roads –– they realized that carrying the injured man out on a stretcher would be very difficult and they needed to call in the helicopter.
"With his injuries, it would have been very rough, bumpy, and he was in quite a bit of pain, so it would have not been a nice carry out. So we are very fortunate that the helicopter was able to do it," said MacDonald.
After getting approval from the province, Sunshine Coast SAR called North Shore Rescue, who came over with their helicopter and night vision capabilities.
North Shore Rescue lowered four people down from the helicopter, including doctors. "We'd already packaged him, but they did extra packaging," said MacDonald.
"They winched him out through the trees, and it was quite tight with the trees, winched him out in the dark with [their] night vision capability," said MacDonald.
"It was great team effort, working with North Shore," he said. The helicopter flew directly to the trauma hospital, said MacDonald. "They landed on the top of the hospital." He had no further details about the man's condition.
MacDonald also noted the biker had friends who were with him and who came out to help who were "very, very helpful. The biker's companions who called for help "were able to provide some very good information" and SAR was able to ping the cellphones and figure out where exactly they were.
Fourteen members of Sunshine Coast SAR responded. The local group had been set to send a crew to help search for the seven-year-old girl missing in Chilliwack, but stood down as she was found, and so those members were on hand to attend to the biker above Gibsons.
Watch the rescue below.
