Rescue on Mount Arrowsmith

Amid blowing winds and heavy wet snow, members of the Alberni Valley Rescue Squad rescue an injured climber on Mount Arrowsmith. Four members of the Alberni Valley team arrived by helicopter, which dropped them onto the summit. The helicopter could not stay because the weather conditions were worsening, but once the man was stabilized and strapped into a lift stretcher several hours later, search and rescue members called for another helicopter to take them off the mountain.

As a man lay seriously injured just below the summit of Mount Arrowsmith Saturday evening, three search and rescue teams raced against the fading light to rescue him before dark.

A Nanaimo man in his 60s and two friends had just reached the 1,829-metre summit not far from Strathcona Provincial Park around 1 p.m. when the man lost his footing and slid face-first down the snow field, said Paul Berry of Comox Valley Ground Search and Rescue.

He suffered considerable facial fractures including to the orbit around the eye, Berry said.

His climbing partners hiked down to him and used their cellphones to call for help.

Amid blowing winds and heavy wet snow on the mountain, members of the Alberni Valley Rescue Squad climbed the Judge’s Route to locate the injured climber. They reached him at around 4 p.m.

Rescuers on the ground realized it would be too difficult to carry the man down the mountain so a helicopter was called in.

Four members of the Alberni Valley team arrived by helicopter, which dropped them onto the summit. The helicopter could not stay because the weather conditions were worsening, Berry said.

Once the man was stabilized and strapped into a lift stretcher around 6 p.m., search and rescue members called for another helicopter to lift them off the mountain.

“They were in a bit of a waiting game because of the weather,” Berry said. The man was conscious and talking but in pain.

The man’s two climbing partners, who were cold and wet, hiked down accompanied by search and rescue members.

Searchers with the Campbell River Volunteer Search and Rescue

Society and the Comox rescue team arrived by helicopter around 8 p.m. and the man was raised to the helicopter .

The man was flown to Parksville where he was transferred to a B.C. Ambulance advanced life support helicopter and taken to a Vancouver hospital.

Berry said even though the men were experienced hikers, “they certainly weren’t prepared for the emergency they found themselves in.”

They weren’t prepared for winter-like conditions on the mountain and did not have the gear to spend the night on the mountain if they had to, he said.

Berry said the rescue is a reminder that climbers must be prepared for poor weather conditions, even in the summer.

“Be aware that if you’re going into the mountains, you need to be prepared for winter-like conditions even though we’re in June.”