Prince George, B.C.- More details today on the rescue of a man from a cave on Fang Mountain east of Prince George,  

Prince George Search and Rescue Volunteer Jeff Smedley says a thousand pound rock had come down on a man in a cave on Saturday afternoon, “This rock was in a very narrow passage, glanced off his shoulder and partially trapped him for a little while in the cave. The other members of his party were able to assist with getting him out from under the rock.” 

Speaking on the Meisner program this morning on CFISFM, Smedley says a SPOT beacon had been set at the entrance of the cave and from the SPOT beacon they were able to call for help.

A Cormorant Helicopter had to leave the scene because of mechanical problems, then a Buffalo aircraft was sent in and four rescue workers parachuted close to the scene. They were lead to the injured man. The Cormorant returned to the scene and the injured man was airlifted to hospital.

Smedley offered high praise to the helicopter companies which provided initial service. “When the call came in, we had about one hour of daylight left, and these two companies, Aberdeen Helicopters and Pacific Western Helicopters, went all out to make sure we could get crews to that mountain.”   

The rescue crews were dropped in a meadow above the cave and had about a half hour hike to get to the entrance of the cave  “For the guys from 442 Squadron the terrain was too steep to parachute into, they had to parachute on to the road.” There were three people in the injured man’s party, and a second group of four who had planned on going into the cave.

The work to rescue the man was done by headlamp, which in itself was a challenge given the steep terrain, the injured man was very tall, making it difficult to fit him properly on the stretcher, and the injured man had to be lowered 3,000 feet to a rescue point. “This is the nastiest area I have ever had to do a stretcher evacuation, and I’ve been in search and rescue for 27 years”. He says the entire evacuation took eight hours and required a safety line on the stretcher at all times “There was not one place where we could walk with the stretcher, that entire 2 kilometres we had to bring the stretcher down, we were passing the stretcher from one person to the other.”

Jeff says he just received an email listing the man’s injuries, which include: 7 fractured ribs on the right side of his chest, 3 on the left, fractured left clavicle, fractured right clavicle and crushed fingers on his left hand. “There were many times where we weren’t certain he was going to make it.”

The rescuers suffered some minor injuries as well, as one of the rescuers had a rock fall on him in the cave, causing bruising, others were cut and bruised.

There were about 60 people involved in the rescue and only the 4 members of the 442 Squadron are paid , the rest are volunteers. Jeff says he offers his thanks for assistance to the 28 Prince George Search and Rescue volunteers, the members from the Quesnel Search and Rescue,  Nechako Lakes,  B.C. Cave Rescue team, the members of the 442 Squadron and the Helicopter companies who helped in the rescue. He also gives credit to the  6 Alpine Club of Canada members who came out Sunday morning to help retrieve all the rescue gear that had been cached on the side of the mountain as the rescue proceeded.