At about 10:30 AM on Friday, February 5th, Prescott Regional Communications Center received a 911 call about a ground-level fall of an 85-year-old female who was hiking in the woods behind her house in the Ranch subdivision. The initial arriving crew found an 85-year-old female about a quarter of a mile away up a trail who had a complaint of a fall in the snow/ice with instability and pain in the right knee. Prescott Fire Dept.‘s technical rescue station was dispatched to assist in extricating the patient out of the forest. The patient was given pain medication to help with the movement that was going to occur and she was then transported by Lifeline Ambulance to Yavapai Regional Medical Center in Prescott for further evaluation.
Considering the unlucky circumstances that the fall had on the patient, she did everything else correctly. In addition to a dog that was very eager to show us the location of the patient, the patient had a charged cell phone, was wearing appropriate clothes to keep her warm and was able to communicate her location so that fire crews could promptly find her. The entire location and extrication process took a little more than 45 minutes.
