A Vancouver woman and her pitbull had a close call last week when they tumbled eight storeys down a ravine above Horseshoe Bay.
The 27-year-old victim was walking the dog on the Whyte Lake trail overlooking the western end of West Vancouver just after noon May 2 when she and the animal lost their footing and fell approximately 25 metres down a precipitous slope.
The woman came to rest near a rushing creek and found herself unable to climb back up the wet incline, so she phoned for help.
The call was passed on to the Vancouver police's Air 1 helicopter, which soon spotted the distressed hiker and radioed her location to rescuers. Emergency crews rushed to the area, and firefighters eventually used ropes to haul the woman and her 80-pound canine to safety.
The victim was lucky she had been carrying a cellphone, according to police, as the ruggedness of the terrain and the loud sound of the swollen creek made it unlikely that her cries for help would have been heard.
