A small bush on a ledge appears to have “miraculously” saved the life of a climber who fell down the steep slope of a mountain, according to B.C. search and rescue crews.
On Monday afternoon, Lions Bay Search and Rescue got the call from an injured man on the side of the East Lion, which manager Martin Caldwell describes as a “75-degree rock face with a few bushes on it.”
The man had been climbing solo, scrambling with very little gear and without a helmet in terrain that Caldwell says is incredibly risky.
“The exposure is significant. In other words, if you slip, you’re likely going to fall to your death,” he said.
The man told Caldwell he had lost consciousness, had a gash on his forehead, was in a significant amount of pain and could not move without getting dizzy.
“He was coherent, but nervous and worried,” Caldwell says. “He was obviously quite concerned with all of this, and so was I.”
Lions Bay SAR called North Shore Rescue to assist with a helicopter. Search manager Dave Barnett says the initial reconnaissance flight reveled how challenging it would be to safely extract the injured man.
“We knew right away this was going to be an extremely technical rescue, that east aspect of the East Lions is almost vertical, it’s a very steep slope, and the fellow was precariously hanging in some shrubs,” he says.
“It’s amazing he didn’t fall all the way down to the bottom.”
Rescue crews had to anchor themselves and the hiker to the rockface before they could even begin loading the injured man into a specialized stretcher – which they also had to make sure was stable. Barnett says there was a distinct possibility the man had suffered concussion, a brain bleed, or spinal injuries. He had also been unconscious for 30 minutes.
“We understand this fellow is recovering nicely. Some of the injuries that we suspected, I think, were accurate, but it could have been much, much more severe,” he says.
Search and rescue crews routinely note that every call they respond to offers potential lessons for people heading into the outdoors, in this case the takeaways are the importance of having proper gear and the dangers of attempting challenging climbs alone.
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