Major rescue effort in B.C. recovers 2 injured climbers

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A 60-person search-and-rescue team worked through the night Thursday to save two people injured in a mountainside cave in B.C.'s Evanoff Provincial Park.
Photograph by: Handout, BC ParksPRINCE GEORGE — A 60-person search-and-rescue team worked through the night Thursday to save two people injured in a mountainside cave northeast of Prince George, B.C.

Jeff Smeadley, of Prince George Search and Rescue, said the incident involved a three-person party of experienced "cavers" who were exploring the Fang Cave complex in B.C.'s Evanoff Provincial Park.


"The three of them were traversing a low pitch when the middle person slipped, fell and landed on the third person," Smeadley said Friday. "The third person managed to get out to the top entrance, where they had a SAT phone, and (he) called for help."


Although the call came in around 8 p.m. Thursday, Smeadley said the rescue effort began around midnight due to a two-hour drive to the mountain and an arduous, 2.5-kilometre hike in shin-deep snow up to the cave's entrance.


"With fresh snowfall and freezing conditions — it was right on the verge of freeze-thaw — it made things very slippery and rather difficult, especially going across the boulder-field portion of the trail," he said.


"Once we got them out, it took us five hours to take them down off the mountain, where we handed them over to B.C. Ambulance."


The injured pair, a man and woman both in their early 20s, were taken to hospital in Prince George with leg injuries. The fallen female hiker also sustained a concussion and facial lacerations. Smeadley said both are in "pretty good shape."


In 2009, another hiker was injured in Fang Cave when a large boulder fell on top of him.


"We had 52 searchers on that and . . . (it) wasn't enough," Smeadley said. "We pumped as many resources as we could onto the mountain so that we could ensure the safe recovery of these people."


Fang Cave is ninth-longest cave in Canada and is located 120 kilometres northeast of Prince George.



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   A 60-person search-and-rescue team worked through the night Thursday to save two people injured in a mountainside cave in B.C.'s Evanoff Provincial Park.Photograph by: Handout, BC Parks