Caught on Video: Dramatic Rescue of Fallen Hiker in Eaton Canyon
Rescuers airlifted a hiker out of Eaton Canyon in California after she slipped and fell, getting caught in a tree that likely saved her life. A friend videotaped the whole ordeal on a cellphone.
The video shows an unidentified woman trying to walk down an embankment when she lost her footing and slid nearly 50 feet before her leg got caught on a tree, stopping her fall. You can hear her frightened screams as she slid on the rock. She then clung to the tree as rescuers reached her by helicopter.
The woman survived and was taken to a hospital.
The incident happened two days before the U.S. Forest Service was scheduled to shut down the Pasadena trail.
“We’re always up there plucking people off the side of the cliff,’’ Sgt. Phil Barth of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, told ktla.com.
The upper waterfall area of the trail is closed to the public starting today.
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Visitors are now banned from 84 acres near the falls. Anyone caught in the area faces a $5,000 fine and up to six months in jail. Hikers still have access to the lower waterfall.
Since 2001, five people have fallen to their deaths in Eaton Canyon and dozens more have been rescued, according to ktla.com.
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