Emergency personnel with County Fire District No. 2 rapelled down a slippery ravine to a stranded and injured hiker at Sol Duc Falls during a difficult, hours-long rescue.
The man, Josh Reciert, 30, of Lynnwood, was transported to Olympic Medical Center at 3 a.m. Saturday and later sent to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where he was listed in satisfactory condition Saturday afternoon.
At about 5:36 p.m. Friday, Reciert and his wife were hiking the trail at Sol Duc Falls when he walked out onto a rocky area just above the cascading water, said Mike DeRousie, assistant chief of Fire District No. 2.
At that location, the Sol Duc fans into two channels, crashing 50 feet into a narrow chasm where the sun rarely shines.
While out on the rocks, Reciert slipped and “was swept down the waterfall, went under a log and down another waterfall, finally pulling himself up out of the river,” DeRousie said.
Reciert was located about 70 feet down a “very steep embankment 0.8 miles from the trail-head,” DeRousie said.
“The patient was caught on a little landing down there right by the river.”
The man was hiking with other couples at the time and a retired emergency medical technican (EMT) who provided information to 9-1-1 emergency dispatchers, DeRousie said.