Dramatic footage of a rock climber’s precarious helicopter rescue has been revealed, with emergency crews revealing he suffered serious injuries after falling 8m from a popular summit in the Victorian Alps.
The climber had been scaling the Horn on Mount Buffalo when their equipment failed, causing them to fall onto a “precarious ledge” several metres below.
The mountain, about 325km northeast of Melbourne, reaches 1723m at its highest plateau and is popular with hikers and climbers.
A Victoria Ambulance spokesman said the person was seriously injured in the fall, suffering suspected rib fractures that left them briefly unconscious and stranded on a narrow ledge.
A Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) crew rushed to the site with paramedics from a Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance and Advanced Life Support.
“After flying over the scene to assess whether a safe winch was possible, the HEMS crew located the patient on a precarious ledge,” a spokesman said.
MICA Flight Paramedic Shaun Whitemore was winched down to stabilise the patient, as well as provide pain relief and splinting so they could be extracted in “extremely tight conditions.”
The climber was winched to safety and flown to Royal Melbourne Hospital for further treatment.
Victoria Ambulance released footage of the incident that occurred in March.
