‘Herculean task’: Injured hiker rescued from White Mountains; rescuers also injured, Fish and Game says
A hiker from Quebec was taken to the hospital after search and rescue teams dealt with possible life-threatening conditions to rescue him from the White Mountains
By Isabel Litterst
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THOMPSON AND MESERVE’S PURCHASE, New Hampshire (WMUR) — A hiker from Quebec was taken to the hospital after search and rescue teams dealt with possible life-threatening conditions to rescue him from the White Mountains, authorities said.
New Hampshire Fish and Game said around 3:45 p.m. on Saturday, William Tessier, 29, of Quebec, called 911 for help. Search and rescue teams responded to the call off the north side of Jewell Trail, near Mount Clay.
He reportedly slipped and fell in icy conditions and slid several feet off the trail before striking an object as he was going down from the summit of Mount Washington with four other people, Fish and Game said.
NH Fish and Game called in other advanced search and rescue teams.
“We organized all the gear, and we got our litter, which is, basically like the stretcher that we use, carry folks,” Rusty Talbot, captain of the Pemigewasset Valley Search & Rescue. “And we all met up over at the base of the cog.”
The Mount Washington Cog Railway took the rescuers up, who had to hike nearly a mile encountering icy conditions and high winds across the ridge about 5,000 feet, authorities said.
“Once we got above the tree line, the winds were rattling the whole train,” Talbot said.
Rescuers got to the hiker before 7:30 p.m. and treated him for a leg injury, shoulder injury, and hypothermia. The injured hiker was put in a litter and carried uphill across trails, which authorities said was a “herculean task,” as 20 rescuers took turns carrying the man uphill in 40 to 60-plus-mile-per-hour winds across ice-covered rocks, authorities said.
“Even though it seems like a long period of time before he got back down to the ambulance without their assistance, that would have taken much, much longer for our volunteers to hike up the two and a half miles to the patient and then again hiking back down in those conditions,” said Sgt. Heidi Murphy with New Hampshire Fish and Game.
Rescuers were injured in this task but were able to get back to the train without further incident and made it back down to the base station at 10:45 p.m., authorities said. The hiker was taken to the hospital for treatment.
“If there’s any message to send to other folks out there that when conditions get bad up in the mountains here, they get really bad,” Talbot said.
Fish and Game said without the SAR volunteers from Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, Pemigewasset Valley Search and Rescue, Mountain Rescue Services and the Cog Railway, the mission would not have gone as well as it did.
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