A 75-year-old paraglider is expected to survive after crashing down a cliff on Mount Prevost on Friday, thanks to a coordinated multi-agency rescue and the actions of a fellow glider who reached the injured man before rescuers.
The Chemainus resident had launched from one of the main jump points on the west side of the mountain, clipped a tree, and spiralled roughly 400 feet down the rock face, according to Cowichan Search and Rescue (CSAR) officials.
CSAR was called out at about 1:15 p.m., said search manager and operations co-ordinator Tina Phillips. Her team was on scene with a rescue plan in place at 3:15 p.m.
“Right away, we were able to get a team up the road underneath him to the base of the rock face he was on,” Phillips said. “We had the ropes team go to the top with all the ground support to set up a system on the way, but the problem was that there was nowhere to set anchors close to the edge, so it used up a lot of rope.”
CSAR crews got to within 100 feet of the man, but could go no further.
Phillips explained that CSAR rope teams are trained to work from above rather than climb up to a subject.
“In ground search and rescue, we rescue from the top. We’re trained to go down, not really up,” she said. “Had we not called North Shore, we would have been there with multiple rope teams trying to get him out in the dark.”
Recognizing early that helicopter support would be required, CSAR called in North Shore Rescue (NSR). Phillips noted NSR had received a second emergency call as they were lifting off. Because the Mount Prevost victim’s level of consciousness was decreasing, the team had to decide whether to prioritize him over the other call.
Both CSAR and NSR credited paraglider and rock climber Matt Clark with playing a critical role in the rescue. Clark, part of the same paragliding group flying that day, was part of the group that drove as far up the mountain as they could, then bushwashed as far as possible before Clark eventually climbed to the man’s location and found him hanging unconscious in his harness.
The terrain was steep and unstable, Phillips said, with loose rock and gravel below the victim and a 15-foot vertical rock face above, split by a narrow chimney crack. Clark scrambled up through the chimney to reach the man, a feat Phillips described as “amazing when you see the location he was in.”
With direction from a high-level first aider, Clark undid the victim’s chest strap and rendered aid, staying with the man until rescuers arrived. He reported that the paraglider was losing blood from a deep knee laceration and showing signs of shock.
“At that time, we called in support from North Shore,” Phillips said. “It was either we would be there all night, or call in North Shore, and we could see the weather changing, and it was drizzling, and the man was in and out of consciousness throughout, and vomiting, and that was one of the major concerns that we had.”
Despite Clark’s efforts to keep the man warm, exposure remained a concern. “Lying anywhere up there for any length of time would make a person cold,” Phillips said. After the man had been snagged for about an hour, Clark was thrown a knife to cut and remove the final piece of harness and continue first-aid, actions NSR air operations coordinator John Blown said likely saved the man’s life.
“The location was a challenging one with significant fall potential,” Blown said. “[Clark] rendered aid at risk to himself, and we would like to extend our thanks for his life-saving actions.”
NSR responded with Talon Helicopters, deploying two veteran hoist technicians who are also emergency room physicians. “The hoist techs were lowered into the scene one at a time onto a downslope ledge. The subject was packaged, hoisted out, and handed over to Emergency Health Services (EHS). The last half of the rescue was done on night-vision goggles,” Blown reported.
Meanwhile, CSAR members repositioned for an alternative rescue approach in case NSR was unable to extricate the paraglider from what CSAR described as an “extremely challenging” location. “Enormous thanks to North Shore Rescue and Talon Helicopters, as well as the paragliding group witnesses and Clark, who put himself at considerable risk,” Phillips said.
The paraglider was airlifted off the mountain just before dark, at about 5:30 p.m., with Clark flown out afterward. The victim was transported to a landing zone set up by CSAR on Somenos Road — the first and best-case scenario of three options the team had planned — before being transferred to an ambulance and taken to hospital for treatment.
“He’s expected to be OK,” Phillips said. “His helmet was actually fractured. His wife was telling me he had gravel embedded in the back of his head, he had an eye laceration and a deep knee laceration, among his injuries.”
CSAR had about 20 members involved in the response, while NSR contributed a pilot, a hoist operator, and two physicians, along with Clark and witnesses from the paragliding group.
“It went so incredibly smoothly, all things considered,” Phillips said. “All the teams were fantastic, and we were just so fortunate to have Matt able to be in that location. It was a really complex and complicated rescue, but it went really smoothly.”