A Flight For Life helicopter lands above treeline on Mount Yale to rescue an injured hiker .
Chaffee County Search & Rescue-North conducted three missions last weekend to assist hikers who had injured themselves hiking in the Sawatch Range.
According to reports on CCSAR-N’s Facebook page, rescuers were paged out at 11 a.m., Saturday, Aug. 22, with a report of a hiker who had fallen approximately 100 feet near 13,800 feet elevation on Huron Peak, sustaining a head injury.
Bystanders, including an emergency room physician and an emergency medical technician, assisted the hiker while CCSAR-N and Lake County Search & Rescue teams mobilized to the site.
A Flight for Life Colorado helicopter was able to find a landing zone about a mile from the hiker in Huron Basin.
The hiker was taken down to the helicopter and flown to Summit County for medical care at around 2:20 p.m.
On the way back to the CCSAR-N bay at 2:40, a second call came in regarding a hiker with a broken hip about a mile up Browns Creek trail in the area of Mount Antero.
The subject of the mission was carried on a wheeled litter to a Chaffee County EMS ambulance. CCSAR-N was assisted in this mission by CCSAR-South.
All team members were out of the field by 5 p.m.
The next day, at 12:50 p.m., rescue teams were paged out to Mount Yale for a report of a hiker who had fallen and badly injured her leg, knee and face at about 12,800 feet.
“Her companions and other hikers assisted her in slowly descending, while a 5-member CCSAR-N hasty team hiked up to her with the wheeled litter, prepared for a carry out,” the Facebook report said.
CCSAR-N reached the subject at treeline by 3:15 pm., followed by a Flight for Life helicopter at 3:40.
Flight for Life carried a CCSAR-N physician member to the site to assist with evaluating the injured hiker.
The hiker was flown to Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center by 4 p.m.
