Helicopter Evacuation for Diabetic Emergency
June 21, 2007
Panorama Trail, Illilouette Fall
Yosemite Dispatch received a 911 cell phone call at about 1:40pm reporting that a man on the Panorama Trail near Illilouette Fall was experiencing a diabetic emergency. The park helicopter was immediately dispatched to land in Ahwahnee Meadow to pick up a medical team. Additional teams were simultaneously started down the trail from the Glacier Point Trailhead and the Happy Isles Trailhead, since the exact location of the patient was unkown.
The patient was located from the air at about 2:20pm. Two separate attempts to land near the patient were aborted due to high brush and trees. The decision was made to insert the medical team by heli-rappel. A litter and wheel were lowered to the ground to allow either a short-haul by helicopter or a carry-out by ground resources, depending on what the patient's condition dictated.
Rescuers made contact with the patient and began medical care within four minutes of leaving the helicopter. The ground team that had left from Happy Isles was called off because of their distance from the patient. The team from Glacier Point continued towards the scene to assist with the operation.
The park helicopter was able to land on the granite in the drainage below Illilouette Creek Bridge. Two helicopter crew members hiked up from the landing zone to help with the carry-out operation.
At about 3:45pm the patient was loaded into the helicopter and flown to Ahwahnee Meadow, where he was transfered to an air ambulance that flew him out of the park for further evaluation.
SAR Technician Dov Bock heli-rappels during a training exercise. This was the method used to deploy
resources to the patient's location. Photo by David Pope