Crew & Chopper Rescue Hiker With Broken Ankle on Hood Mt.

A team of emergency responders, including a helicopter crew, sheriff's deputies, firefighters, paramedics, and an off-duty detective, rescued a woman who had fallen while hiking in a Sonoma County park on Sunday.

According to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, search and rescue helicopter Henry 1 performed a long-line rescue to extract an injured hiker from a remote area in Hood Mountain Regional Park and Open Space Preserve, located east of Oakmont.

Deputies said the 46-year-old victim and her friends were located east of Gunsight Rock, a vista point near the summit of Hood Mountain. However, due to the rough terrain, the area was not suitable for a helicopter landing.

The women, all from Sonoma County, were training for a long-distance hike.

Henry 1 pilot Paul Brady landed the helicopter in a parking lot at the base of Hood Mountain where Santa Rosa emergency crews met the helicopter, creating the staging area for the rescue operation.

Fire captain Steve Suter, a former Henry 1 paramedic, assisted in the rescue and Deputy Sheriff Chris Mahoney configured the aircraft for a long-line rescue.

The crew flew to the victim with a 100-foot line attached to the belly of the aircraft and the victim was then hoisted into the helicopter and flown to the nearby parking lot to be transferred into a waiting ambulance.

The hiker suffered a broken ankle. She has been treated and released from the hospital, according to sheriff's Lt. Steve Brown.

The sheriff's office said that the Henry 1 crew was prepared for the operation after routinely training for long-line rescues in the ocean, on cliffs and other remote areas along the North Coast.
  
--Bay City News