A person fell roughly 30 feet off a cliff near Ocean Cove Campground yesterday, landing on rocks below the bluffs in a spot rescuers could not reach on foot. Bystanders climbed down to the victim before crews arrived, fashioning a makeshift splint for an injured leg while waiting for help to reach the remote stretch of the Sonoma Coast.
Crews received reports of the fall on Saturday and quickly mobilized the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office air support helicopter, known as Henry-1, according to KRON4. The person had fallen into an inaccessible area on the rocks below the cliffs, and rescuers determined an aerial extraction was the only viable option to reach them.
Henry-1 crews lowered a 100-foot rescue longline and used a traverse rescue stretcher to lift the injured person off the rocks and carry them to safety, per the outlet’s report. The bystanders who reached the victim first had already stabilized the injured leg, an intervention that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office says likely helped before the helicopter crew could complete the extraction.
A Web of Agencies Along a Remote Coastline
The rescue drew on a coordinated response involving the Timber Cove Fire Protection District, Coast Life Support District, California State Parks, and REACH Sonoma County 1, the regional air ambulance service, the station’s report notes. That kind of layered response is typical for this stretch of coast, where the nearest hospitals sit hours away by road…