An injured hiker was rescued via helicopter from Shenandoah National Park Wednesday afternoon, the flight crew’s fourth hoist rescue this year alone.
The National Park Service notified Med-Flight 1, one of two Virginia State Police helicopter medical evacuation programs, of a hiker with a shoulder injury on Old Rag Mountain in the Madison County part of the park around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The flight, staffed by 1st Sgt. Jeffrey Weber, paramedic Chris Orr and firefighter Michael Burnett, retrieved the hiker and flew them to waiting medics crews at the base of the mountain.
“They weren’t at the very top of Old Rag Mountain, but they were in an area that is pretty treacherous from what we’ve been told, and they weren’t able to make it back down by foot by ground so they had to be hoisted,” Orr said in a statement shared by Virginia State Police.
Weber said the hike down from Old Rag would have taken several hours, but the flight took less than three minutes.
The weather was a slight concern since clouds were low, touching the top of the mountain, the crew said.
“Luckily, where the injured hiker was located, they were just below the cloud layer, so we were able to get up into the area where they were and do a successful hoist,” Webber said.
Med-Flight 1 also rescued another hiker from Old Rag earlier this year on March 31.
Old Rag is roughly 80 nautical miles from Med-Flight 1’s home base in Chesterfield County.
Med Flight-1 is a joint effort between Virginia State Police pilots and paramedics with Chesterfield County Fire and EMS. It began operations on April 1, 1984, and responds to calls for assistance in a 60-mile radius of Richmond.
Med-Flight II began operations on Jan. 1, 1987, and responds to calls for assistance in a 60-mile radius of Abingdon.
Med-Flight programs respond to more than 1,800 calls and transport more than 800 patients annually, according to data from the past three years. They serve 43 hospitals in 59 counties and 34 cities.
The Virginia Department of Fire Programs recognized the Med-Flight 1 crew at a ceremony on Thursday for a hoist rescue last August along Saint Mary’s Falls Trail in Augusta County.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com