VANCOUVER — As BC residents are enjoying these last days of summer, search and rescue crews from around the Lower Mainland and Squamish have been kept busy. Today there were rescues in two local hiking and mountain-climbing hot-spots: Lynn Canyon and Stawamus Chief Mountain.
According to Assistant Fire Chief Mike Cairns from North Vancouver, a 20-year-old woman fell about three-metres from a ledge, at Lynn Canyon Park. She was lifted out by a stretcher, which was lowered into the creek.
It was a busy day at the popular park, and Cairns says hundreds of people were out and about. The woman appeared to be going for a swim with friends.
Meanwhile, it was also packed at the Chief. So busy, in fact, that Squamish Search and Rescue members had to perform crowd control, as they rescued a 24-year-old rock climber, according to Katy Chambers with the organization.
The man had been making his way up the 700-metre granite cliff, when he fell and was injured.
“Originally we did a hasty fly-over, an original assessment of the scene and then we flew two members up above the subject as crowd control so we didn’t have any falling rocks or any climbers that were going to further injure our team or the subjects down below,” Chambers told Global News.
The man was put on a backboard and air-lifted off the mountain, to a nearby elementary school field. He was then taken by ambulance to Squamish Hospital. The extent of in injuries are not known at this time.
“This is not for the casual hiker, you definitely need to be skilled to rock climb in this area,” said Chambers.
–With files from The Canadian Press.
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