Woman rescued from Surrey ravine
Firefighters called to Delta Creek to end injured 30-something’s five-day ordeal
A woman who had been stranded for five days in a ravine in Surrey has been rescued.
The woman, who told firefighters she’d been there since last Thursday, was discovered Tuesday afternoon by a passerby in the Delta Creek ravine near 97th Avenue and 117B Street.
Clint Whitla was looking for his stolen bike and ended up at a dead end where 96A Avenue dropped off into the ravine, so he decided to go for a walk to clear his head.
“I was making a lot of noise, and
she heard me,” he said. “She called out ‘Hello,’ and said, ‘Help me, please.’ It was obviously someone in trouble.”
The Surrey man made his way to the bottom of the ravine and found the woman lying face down, just off the creek bed. She was bruised and scratched, and had a gash on her forehead.
Her face was covered in dried blood, and she had no shoes or socks on her swollen feet.
“She was in really bad shape,” Whitla said.
The woman told Whitla she was resting on a fallen tree at the top when she rolled off it accidentally and fell.
The area where the woman was found had steep terrain, said Whitla, who estimated the fall at about a nine-metre drop.
Surrey firefighters responded to Whitla’s call just before 2 p.m., assistant chief Chris Keon said. The ravine is quite deep and the sides are very steep, so the Surrey Fire Service’s technical-rescue team was deployed.
“She was conscious the whole time,” Keon said. He said she was in her mid-30s.
Firefighters needed ropes to help lift her out on a stretcher. She was then handed over to the B.C. Ambulance Service, who transported her to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and dehydration.