A California hiker was rescued by helicopter from a narrow portion of a cave where she was stuck for 16 hours, according to the San Diego county sheriff’s department.
On 21 October, the rescued hiker, who has not been identified by law enforcement, was exploring a cave in an area known as Thunder Canyon Caves, 65 miles (105km) east of San Diego, when she tried to pass through an opening that was just 12in wide. Her friends tried to free her but were unsuccessful, so they called 911.
Emergency staff with the San Diego and San Bernardino county sheriff’s offices, California’s office of emergency services and a volunteer cave rescue team worked overnight, inching through the cave to reach the woman who was 100ft underground, according to NBC San Diego.
“You find yourself stuck between a rock and hard place or two walls of the cave where it is so tight you can’t even turn your head to the side,” David Angel, with San Bernardino sheriff’s department’s technical rescue team told NBC San Diego.
Angel, also a cave rescue instructor with the National Cave Rescue Commission told the outlet that the trapped hiker was not panicked during the rescue mission and that her getting stuck was the result of a series of “small mistakes” that even the most experienced hiker could have made.
The morning after emergency crews arrived, a helicopter with CalFire airlifted the hiker out of the cave and brought her to an ambulance where she was treated for exhaustion and some scapes and bruises she sustained during the harrowing experience.
“It takes hours to hike into the caves and rescuers had to inch their way into very narrow passages while slowly passing along their gear and equipment. They checked on the patient and kept her warm with blankets to prevent hypothermia,” the San Diego county sheriff’s department said in a statement.
This hiker was one of several to be rescued from a California cave or hiking trail this year. In September two people were extracted from a coastal southern California cave where they were trapped by a rising tide, according to KTLA. And on 12 May, a group of 10 hikers was rescued from Santa Paula Canyon, 70 miles north-west of Los Angeles, after they used Apple’s Emergency SOS feature to alert first responders of their location, according to the Ventura county sheriff’s office.
