CHESTERFIELD — Rescue crews responded Sunday afternoon to a hiker who fell from a 60-foot cliff at the Chesterfield Gorge.
“The patient was found at the bottom of a 60-foot cliff and a high-angle rope rescue was implemented,” the Chesterfield Fire Department reported on its Facebook page. The Chesterfield Department was the first to respond. “Our department has been training extensively for this type of rescue.”
Daryl Springman, assistant director for the Western Massachusetts Technical Rescue Team, said the unidentified hiker fell 30 or 40 feet before rolling further down the cliff. Springman’s team, which covers 101 towns in western Massachusetts, provided 11 technicians and equipment for the rescue.
Springman said the rescue was successful, and that a large part of that was the training the Chesterfield Fire Department and the technical rescue team had previously conducted together.
“We had a working relationship with that fire department, because that is a high-hazard area, that gorge,” Springman said.
The Chesterfield Fire Department’s statement credits mutual aid partners with helping lift up the man from a sheer cliff out of the gorge. Among those who assisted were Williamsburg and Goshen fire departments, Springman said. Several members of the technical rescue team were Amherst firefighters, according to Amherst Fire Chief Tim Nelson.
Chesterfield and the technical rescue team packaged the patient in a basket, and a technician rode up the cliff with him, Springman said. From there, Highland Ambulance transported the hiker to a landing zone at Judd’s Field on South Street, and from there Life Star Air Medical Helicopter flew him to a trauma center, according to the Chesterfield Fire Department.
Springman did not know the man’s name, what his injuries were or his current medical condition. He said the hiker was in a lot of pain when the rescue crew reached him, and that he was taken to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
Chesterfield Fire Chief Dave Hewes could not be reached for comment Monday.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.