LAPUSH — Coast Guard helicopter crews carried out two rescues in Olympic National Park near LaPush on Tuesday.
A 24-year-old woman with a knee injury and mild hypothermia was hoisted from a campsite in the Goodman Creek area and flown to Forks Municipal Airport where she was taken by ambulance to Forks Community Hospital.
In the second rescue, a 53-year-old man was lifted off a cliff at Second Beach and taken to the Forks airport where he was met by friends. He was uninjured.
A Coast Guard spokesman gave this account of the first rescue:
Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound in Seattle received a request at about 7 p.m. Monday from Olympic National Park personnel to transport the injured hiker from the campsite along Goodman Creek, about 7 miles southeast of LaPush.
The woman had reportedly suffered the knee injury Sunday morning and was unable to hike out on her own.
A Coast Guard flight surgeon discussed the situation by radio with an ONP ranger and an emergency medical technician at the campsite. They had placed the hiker in a tent and were treating her injuries.
The decision was made not to extract her immediately due to the nature of the injury, time of day and deteriorating weather conditions.
The park ranger and EMT said they would stay with the hiker overnight to observe her condition and agreed to reevaluate the situation in the morning.
Around 9 a.m. Tuesday, the Coast Guard was told that the hiker’s condition had worsened.
The MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew aircrew launched at 10:03 a.m. from the Port Angeles Coast Guard station and arrived over the campsite shortly before 11 a.m.
The crew hoisted the hiker. She was in the ambulance in Forks at 11:41 a.m., the Coast Guard spokesman said.
In the second rescue, Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound received a request for assistance from Coast Guard Station Quillayute River in LaPush at 1:51 p.m., reporting that the man was separated from his group of friends and was stranded on a cliff, unreachable by the local first responders.
A MH-65 Dolphin was dispatched from Port Angeles for the rescue. Second Beach is located just south of LaPush.
“Without the fast response of our helicopter crew, this man would have been stranded on the cliff until the next low tide after 10 a.m,” said Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Mario Roy.
Following its usual procedures, the Coast Guard did not identify the woman or the man or any of the other persons involved in the rescue. Without the woman’s name there was no way to get a report from the Forks hospital of her condition.
LaPush is on the Olympic Peninsula coast, 69 highway miles west of Port Angeles.
