Dawson County authorities said it took a team effort to rescue a woman who fell while hiking on a rugged section of a trail along the Amicalola River on Sunday evening.
The woman, who was with other hikers, slipped and fell around 5 p.m. on a rugged portion of the trail just south of the Highway 53 bridge, according to Dawson County EMS Chief Lanier Swafford.
"There is a walkway - a wooden platform - that goes approximately a mile down the side of the river and from my understanding from crews on the scene, she was about a half mile from the end of the walkway," said Swafford. "[That area] is steep...with leaves and other things on the ground it makes it slick and difficult to walk on. She was just in a very difficult position as far as us being easily able to extract her out for care."
Swafford said because his crews knew their limitations, especially with dark coming on, they called the Georgia State Patrol to bring in its aviation unit to pull the woman off the trail.
"We knew that they had capabilities as far as extracting patients with a helicopter and working with the Department of Natural Resources and GSP Aviation and their partners with Hall County Fire Services, and they were able to successfully extract the patient to a safe zone," Swafford said.
He said while the woman's injuries were non life threatening, she did suffer a serious injury to a 'lower extremity." Because of HIPAA regulations, Swafford could not release the woman's name.
Hall County Fire Services indicated the May 28 rescue was the department's first deployment of personnel in conjunction with GSP Aviation.
"Hall County Fire Services has a memorandum of understanding with the Georgia State Patrol in which our two agencies work together to respond to and mitigate rescues in remote locations," said HCFS Capt. Zachary Brackett in an email.
