The video filmed the dramatic rescue of a hiker who was stuck on a steep cliff from a Riverside County trail over the weekend.
Riverside County Sheriff’s Department members responded to a woman’s emergency 911 text on Sunday and found her on the face of a cliff in the Whitewater area of the Pacific Crest Trail, just south of the San Bernardino County border.
The exhausted hiker carrying heavy packs was found in what he described as a “unstable place” where rescuers stepped in for over an hour. The video showed a woman clinging to a rocky cliff as a rescue helicopter floated above her head and rescuer was lowered to her location.
“As you can see, this was a fierce technical rescue,” the Sheriff’s Department said. “Rescue experts decided that the safest option was to hold her and climb to the summit. He had no risk of asking her to lift her arms.
“As you can see, they both had quite adrenaline dump on top once.”
The video contains audio of rescuers who communicate in stages and quietly as they perform the rescue.
The Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail is a continuous route at the top of Pacific Mountain between Mexico and Canada, passing through parts of Southern California, including Anza Borrego Desert Park, Cleveland National Forest, the San Jacinto Mountains, the Big Bear Lake and Arrowhead Area, and San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains. The Southern California stretch, near 650 miles, reaches a maximum elevation of 9,030 feet.
