On Nov 11 around 3 p.m emergency crews in Pontiac were called to rescue an Ottawa hiker who was injured in Gatineau Park. The Pontiac fire department referred to it as one of the most challenging rescues they were part of.

One of the first challenges repeated was locating the injured hiker as the group of . . .

about five went off course from the Luskville Falls hiking trail. When dispatch was able to send a GPS location, the fire department realized that the hikers were three quarters of the way up the mountainside, on the rock-climbing section.

Kevin Mansey, the director of the fire department said the hikers were not equipped with high angle rock climbing. The female hiker started going down and ended up holding onto a rope someone must have left behind, but it snapped, and she ended up sliding down the rock face and fracturing her leg. The hiker ended up on a ledge and was there until rescue teams were able to get to her.

“She was in a bad situation,” said Mansey.

After the Pontiac fire department, arrived they “realized no, this is a highly technical rescue,” and from there they had to call the Ottawa Fire Department technical rescue team as the Pontiac team didn’t have the equipment and the training to complete this rescue on their own.

In total five different departments were on site: National Capital Commission (NCC), Ottawa Fire Department, Sauvetage Bénévole de l’Outaouais (SBO), Pontiac Fire and MRC -des-Collines-de-l’Outaouais police and the paramedics.

Due to the nature of the rescue, Mansey said the Ottawa fire department took the lead and were responsible for the technical part of the rescue. By the time the team was safely able to put her in the basket and bring her down it was 10 p.m. almost three quarters up a 100-meter mountain, it was a significant climb up and down “the reality is, we’re gonna work together and we’re going to get her down in a safe manner,” said Mansey. It took the Ottawa fire department three and a half hours to get the hiker down.

Not knowing how it would go, when the Ottawa fire department arrived around 7 p.m. the chief said, “depending on how this goes, we could be here all night trying to get her off the mountain,” said Mansey. In addition, they were called on Remembrance Day and that posed a challenge because the NCC had limited staff, Mansey said.

“I’ve been in the fire department since 2006. And I’ve never been on a call that was as complicated as that,” he said.

On average they get four to five calls a year from people on the fire tower trail in Luskville but nothing this challenging he said.

Mansey wants to thank all the departments and rescue crew that showed up and helped, “everyone worked really well together. I think that’s what I’m happiest about and how well the different entities worked together.”

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