Putnam County Rescue Squad assisted State Park Rangers this weekend to extract an individual who fell at the base of the top falls at Burgess Falls State Park.
Public Information Officer and SORT team member Mike Herrick said the rescue squad responded to a call for assistance after an individual fell on the far side of the river. Herrick said personnel arrived on the scene to find the patient with a Park Ranger and began gathering the specialized equipment necessary to gain access to the remote location.
“The difficulty came from it being one, the location, it was not an area that’s regularly accessed by personnel,” Herrick said. “What we had to encounter crossing the water for one, with our rope rescue equipment, and then also making access down a small set of rock ledges down to gain access to the patient and the Park Ranger.”
Herrick said the agency maintains a close relationship with the local parks to establish standard procedures for incidents. Herrick said the squad typically sends one or two team leads to assess the situation first to ensure the park is not flooded with unnecessary personnel.
“This was kind of a combination between two of our special operations teams,” Herrick said. “It was a little bit of water rescue contending with the water crossings, the different depths, and at the base of the top falls. But the primary response came from our rope rescue team, being that we wanted to keep the patient as still as possible to prevent any further injuries or exacerbating any injuries.”
Herrick said the rope rescue team established a system to lower equipment to the crews on the ground and then lift the patient approximately 30 to 40 feet to the top of the falls. Herrick said while the majority of rescue squad calls involve vehicle extrication or medical responses, the team maintains technician-level training for high-angle rope rescues to handle these less frequent waterfall incidents.
“The first one may be just the unsafe terrain where it’s uneven, you may not realize that the water goes from one foot down to into a three-foot hole or a deeper hole,” Herrick said. “And then you have, if you haven’t kind of scouted out the area before, if you expect the water to be deep at the base of a falls because it all looks the same shade of color, but in actuality it’s only a foot deep, that creates a significant hazard.”
Herrick said visitors should wear solid footwear with good tread and carry plenty of water to stay hydrated in high temperatures. Herrick said hikers must remain on marked trails because off-trail areas contain unknown hazards like loose ground, holes, or fallen trees hidden by leaf cover.
“The trails are marked because they’re known, the hazards are known for that area, typically very low,” Herrick said. “The trails are maintained by either park staff or volunteers, whereas going off-trail around barricades, the barricades are there for a reason, and so going around a barricade or off-trail, that’s unknown because you may not have a good understanding what the footing is, the leaf covering or the ground covering can be hiding some unknown hazards such as down trees, holes, or loose ground that may allow you to or cause you to slip and slide down the hillside uncontrolled.”
Herrick said anyone with an injured person should call 911 immediately and keep the patient as still and comfortable as possible. Herrick said hikers should notify others of their plans before leaving and consider using the “What3Words” app, which provides three unique words to help rescuers identify a specific GPS location in areas with poor cell service.
“The biggest when it comes to natural areas like Burgess Falls or the waterfall areas in general is stay on those marked trails,” Herrick said. “As I said before, they’re marked for a reason and the barriers are there for a reason to keep everybody safe, and so don’t go around them and just enjoy the park as it was designed to be enjoyed.”
