A driver was seriously injured after his car fell approximately 530 feet over a cliff on a Mount Tamalpais road in Marin County on Friday night, officials said.
Multiple agencies, including three helicopters, came to the rescue of the driver, who had fallen into a ravine from Ridgecrest Boulevard just before 8 p.m., according to a report from the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.
Three U.S. Air Force airmen, who saw the car fall, initially responded; they “made their way down” down to the car and attempted to provide medical aid, the report said. Next, a captain with the Marin County Fire Department reportedly repelled down to the site of the vehicle and started life-saving measures on the driver. Simultaneously, three helicopters — a REACH medical helicopter, the California Highway Patrol H-32, and the sheriff’s Henry 1 — hovered over the scene and offered help, the sheriff said.
The Henry-1 used a 200-foot-long line to also drop a paramedic and equipment for extricating the driver from the car to the site. Sheriff’s office spokesperson Rob Dillion told SFGATE the officers who operate the long line are specially trained and the line can pinpoint where to drop a person on a cliff to help an injured person.
“After an extended extrication, the patient was removed from the vehicle and packaged on a traverse rescue stretcher,” the report said.
The Henry-1 lifted the injured driver and the paramedic with the long line to a waiting ambulance. The ambulance rushed the driver to the REACH helicopter, which transported the driver “to a local trauma center with major injuries,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the CHP helicopter pitched in by rescuing a first responder who was injured while trying to “make access to the vehicle,” the sheriff said.
First responders reported that a tree stopped the car from falling farther down the hillside. “The vehicle was wedged against the broken tree, which was holding the vehicle up from falling further down the hillside,” the report said.
