Firefighters rescued an elderly woman who fell 75 feet down a steep embankment in her Edmonds neighborhood this afternoon.
The 82-year-old woman was uninjured, except for a few scratches. She told firefighters she was walking in the 9100 block of 196th Street SW when she slipped and rolled down the steep, brush-covered slope above Puget Drive.
“She was stuck on the slope for at least two hours before a neighbor heard her cries for help and called 911 around 3 p.m.,” said Leslie Hynes, public information officer for Snohomish County Fire District 1, which provides fire and emergency medical service in the City of Edmonds.
“Crews set up a rope system so a firefighter could rappel down the hillside to the woman’s location,” Hynes said. The firefighter secured the woman to a rope line using a harness to prevent her from slipping further down the hill. With the rope and assistance from the firefighter, the woman was able to climb to the top of the hill on her own.
Fire District 1’s technical rescue truck staffed by firefighters with advanced training in high-angle rope rescue responded to assist crews from Edmonds fire stations.
The technical rescue truck went in service last year and carries equipment for urban search and rescue, confined-space operations, trench rescue, high- and low-angle rope operations, and ice and surface water rescue.
