Rescue operation a success after hiker injured in fall at Sooke Hills

A woman in her mid-30s was rescued from Sugarloaf Mountain near Sooke on Sunday by crews who hiked hours to get her to a waiting ambulance.

“She was a hiker, hiking with her boyfriend,” said Kathryn Farr, a search manager for Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue. “She took a nasty fall and broke a lower limb . . . She was in a lot of pain.”

Getting the woman out on a stretcher took time.

“The terrain is very, very rugged in that area, quite steep,” Farr said. “It was about a four- or five-hour hike out.”

The team has a device with a large tire to which a stretcher can be attached. It can be rolled along a trail, easing the load on rescuers..

“It’s got a frame on it and you clip it onto the stretcher right in the middle,” Farr said. “Then you have eight people on it, four on each side.”

The incident began in midafternoon.

“We were called out around 3 o’clock in the afternoon and had her in a B.C. ambulance by about 11:30.”

Sugarloaf Mountain is north of Kangaroo Road, close to where the four-lane portion of Sooke Road becomes two lanes, and is part of Sooke Hills Wilderness Regional Park.

Farr said that about 30 people from the Juan de Fuca and Metchosin search-and-rescue teams were involved in the operation. The boyfriend was unhurt. “Her friend was fine and called 911 and supported her until we got there,” Farr said.

A 911 call goes to the Emergency Co-ordination Centre and from there, search crews are called out.

“There was good cell reception so we had cell contact with them the entire time.”

Farr said conditions got tougher as the rescue effort progressed.

“It was a cold night, but we carry lots of blankets and have great resources in terms of the people,” she said. “We have a doctor on our team and paramedics so she was in good care, in good hands.”

Farr said two members of the Metchosin Fire Department assisted.

“They had a quad and were helping members down a part of the trail that the quad could go on,” she said “It saved them a little bit of hiking, so they were ferrying people back and forth.”

Capital Regional District personnel also played a part in the response, making sure that the rescue effort had access to a secure area of watershed land.

“We bought her out through the watershed onto one of their roads because that was quicker,” Farr said. “It would have been longer to come out to Sooke Road.”

She said the hikers were wellequipped for their excursion.

“There’s no issues there,” Farr said. “This was just an accident.”