IT was a busy weekend for the North Shore Rescue helicopter team who received back-to-back medical calls on Sunday afternoon.
The team was called out to help a 50year old woman who fractured her ankle after slipping on snow while out for a day hike on the Howe Sound Crest Trail at around 1: 30 p.m.
The woman was given morphine by a member of the team who is also a paramedic. She was then airlifted in a rescue basket suspended underneath the helicopter to the Cypress parking lot and taken by ambulance to Lions Gate Hospital.
As that call was wrapping up, the helicopter team members were once again summoned - this time to a report of a fall at Granite Falls in Indian Arm.
When they arrived on scene, the rescue team found a 28 year-old man had fallen a short distance near the waterfall.
The Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft Siyay, the Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue unit and Coquitlam Search and Rescue rope rescue team, as well as BC Ambulance all attended the call, said team leader Tim Jones.
"Our flight team staged on the tidal flat right on the beach at Granite Falls," he said.
The helicopter team brought the man out of the waterfall area and down to the hovercraft where the ambulance crew was waiting.
The man was then taken to Cates Park on the hovercraft, where an ambulance crew took him to Lions Gate Hospital.
Jones said people should be more cautious and use common sense during the summer, especially around waterfalls.
"We observed a number of young kids precariously around the falls at heights that were 50 to 100 feet (of potential) direct fall." Jones called that "very disconcerting.
"It's just a message to parents and kids, really be aware of what you're doing."
Jones also cautioned that the public needs to be aware that helicopters aren't always available for rescues during the forest fire season, as many companies are employed to fight the blazes.
That means there could be a delay in getting a helicopter to help with a rescue, he warned.
"We're always working to manage it and working with the helicopter companies but it's the nature of the beast."
