Dramatic Air Rescue Above Frazier Park

  • Kern County Helicopter 408 hoists a 49 year old man from the top of Tecuya Ridge Sunday afternoon. [Photo and report by Gary Meyer]

    Kern County Helicopter 408 hoists a 49 year old man from the top of Tecuya Ridge Sunday afternoon. [Photo and report by Gary Meyer]

FRAZIER PARK, Calif. (Sunday, Nov. 2 at 6 p.m.) A 49 year old man was hoisted from the top of Tecuya Ridge to a hovering helicopter on Sunday afternoon, November 2.

Several agencies snapped into action Sunday morning after 10 a.m. when a 911 cell phone call was made from a friend of the man who was injured while riding an off-road vehicle on the ridge just a mile north of the shooting range, according to Kern County Battalion Chief Jack Froggatt.

“This rescue would have taken us all day if we did not have that helicopter,” Froggatt said on-scene while a helicopter rescue crew member worked quickly to “package” the injured man in the “stokes basket” for the ride of his life to the hovering chopper.

Details were unavailable about the extent of the man’s injuries, the cause of the accident or the type of off-road vehicle, although Froggatt told The Mountain Enterprise he thought it was a motorcycle and that the injuries involved the man’s arm and shoulder. Three Forest Service units, four Kern County Fire vehicles, two CHP units and a Hall Ambulance unit cooperated in the rescue and transport.

The patient was transferred to a Hall Ambulance unit at the landing zone a half mile north of Fire Station 57, on what is known as Forest Trail 117.

A cloud system developing on the north side and over the top of the ridge threatened to hamper the rescue effort. The pilot had to fly as far south as Highway 138 before turning to approach the mountain from the south and avoid the hazardous weather.

This is part of the October 31, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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