Saving fallen Palouse Falls hiker was Tri-City crew’s most technical rope rescue yet

The 6-hour rescue of an unconscious hiker from the bottom of a steep cliff at Palouse Falls was the team’s most technical rope rescue to date at the state park.

Tri-Cities emergency crews are called several times a year to help stranded hikers or to recover victims, but this week’s rescue was daunting.

The remoteness of the north Franklin County park and the hiker’s location on a slope added to the challenges the two dozen responders faced as they worked to help the man before running out of daylight.

Chief Mike Harris with Franklin County Fire District 3 called it “a complex rescue,” but added that the agencies — particularly Pasco Fire’s Technical Rescue Team — have practiced at Palouse Falls and other locations so they’re ready when that 911 call comes in.

Palouse Falls was declared the state waterfall in 2014. Visitors often leave the fenced overlook and hike down narrow undeveloped paths to get an up-close view of the water plunging 198 feet from a basalt channel.

Tuesday’s call was the first this season at the park about an hour-and-45-minute drive from Pasco.

“It was a cooperative effort, and that is kind of what we do with the fire service in the Tri-Cities area, and really all over Washington,” Harris told the Tri-City Herald. “... The training that we do together and the cooperation that we have pays off in instances like this.”

The 28-year-old Walla Walla man is improving, said Capt. Ken Meyers with the Pasco Fire Department.

Knocked unconscious

Meyers was the rescue team’s supervisor on Tuesday. Harris was the overall incident commander, who parked up the road away from the action, where he had enough radio and cellphone coverage to relay information between emergency dispatchers and the rescuers.

The hiker’s name and specific injuries were not disclosed, though he had a head wound and could not hike out.

He was hit with a football-size rock that came loose from the cliff.

The man, who was hiking with his wife, then fell about 20 feet below the lowest trail. The unofficial trail goes down to the Palouse River below the falls.

Windy weather prevented the Life Flight helicopter from being able to land lower down.

Instead, four emergency medical technicians had to rappel down a cliff and move the man back to the trail so he could be initially treated and placed in a basket.

The trail they worked on was only 15 inches wide with “an up slope on one side and a down slope on the other,” said Meyers.

Once the hiker was harnessed in, rescuers carried the basket to the base of the cliff. From there it was hoisted straight up, with the “haul team” pulling the rope up as rescuers walked up the side of the cliff while tending the basket.

The patient then was placed in an ambulance and driven to the waiting helicopter in the park’s parking lot. He was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Richland’s Kadlec Regional Medical Center.

“I do want to express my appreciation to all the volunteer agencies that showed up, to the sheriff’s department and to the parks department. They all provided people that were a great help,” said Meyers. “We actually utilized many of those volunteers in our rope hauls. So much support people are required in one of these.”

Responders included Franklin Fire Districts 1 and 3, Pasco and Connell fire, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Franklin County Public Hospital District 1, Washington State Parks and Columbia Basin Dive Rescue.

Technical rescue

Meyers said the Technical Rescue Team happened to be about 2 1/2 hours into a rope training session at the department’s Pasco tower when the emergency call came in at 3:19 p.m.

The crew quickly disassembled their equipment and got on the road, where they were able to shave off about 15 minutes from the drive time by using lights and sirens.

“We go as fast as we safely can, knowing that there may be a life that’s counting on it,” he said.

The entire response group considered different options to reach the injured hiker, including sending a boat up river from Lyons Ferry State Park.

However, there were too many exposed rocks for the Dive Rescue’s Zodiac inflatable boat and the nearest rescue jet boat in Columbia County was out of service for maintenance, said Harris.

Rappelling down the side of the cliff ended up the best option.

Meyers described the incident at Palouse Falls as the team’s “most technical rescue to date because it took multiple evolutions in a high angle environment.”

He explained that normally a rescue will involve raising someone or lowering someone. But here they had get down a high cliff, along with redirecting ropes and carrying the patient over a lot of obstacles.

Meyers said the rescuers were dealing with “loose rocks, blowing dirt and anything else they can encounter out in the desert by Palouse Falls.”

“This also was the longest rope deployment we’ve ever done,” he said.

The team works with 300-foot ropes, and on this incident they had to tie new ropes together to get more length for going over the cliff.

Meyers said each rescuer required more than 350 feet of rope to rappel down and reach the hiker.

Hiking, swimming deaths

At least four men, all in their 20s, have died at the park since 2016 after following unofficial trails into undeveloped areas.

Two of them fell to their deaths from the rocky cliff sides of the Palouse River above the falls, and two drowned while swimming beneath the falls.

Washington State Parks in 2018 installed blunt signs and additional fencing to help visitors understand that the risk of death at the falls is real.

“Warning — People have died here,” one sign says. “We want you to live — Stay back from cliff edge.”

Meyers said 2020 was “a pretty good year” in terms of a lack of rescue calls at Palouse Falls because the pandemic kept a lot of visitors away. “But it seems to be starting back up,” he added.

Meyers said it takes a lot of people to accomplish a rescue of this technical level — “a lot of behind-the-scenes things going on.”

That includes the workers who were trying to get lighting set up just in case Tuesday’s rescue effort went after darkness.

Chief Harris said they set the completion mark for sunset, which was 8:37 p.m.

The actual rescue was done by then and the helicopter took off with the hiker as the sun was setting, though crews stuck around after 9 p.m. packing up the equipment.

This story was originally published May 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.