April 08--Firefighters rescued three hikers Monday morning in Coopers Rock State Forest.
They had been unable to make it out of the forest for 11 hours.
Cheat Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jason Christopher said five people from Kentucky were visiting the park and three of them decided to hike from the main overlook to Cheat River below.
Rescuers were called to help in the search at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday. All the hikers had been rescued by 8 a.m. Monday.
"At some point going down, they just got exhausted and couldn't get back up," Christopher said. "It's about a mile down there."
One of the group who stayed back flagged down a park ranger and said her friends had been gone for too long, Christopher said, adding the hikers were unfamiliar with the area.
Firefighters from Morgantown, Brookhaven and Masontown were called, along with Mon EMS.
"In the end, we decided it was easier to take them down to the river than try and go back up. It was really steep," Christopher said.
Masontown and Morgantown fire crews launched rescue boats, which brought the hikers to the marina at Mont Chateau Road.
Dan Luzier, chief of the Masontown VFD, said all three were accounted for by 8 a.m., when crews began to clear the scene.
Christopher said vertical rescue equipment -- rappel ropes, harnesses and rescue baskets -- was used during the rescue.
"They were a lot farther out than anybody realized," Luzier said. "There were a lot of hazards with the cliffs and rocks rolling down as we worked through the night." Luzier said his department got the call at 9:42 p.m. Sunday.
The names of the hikers were not released Monday, but Morgantown Fire Department Chief Mark Caravasos said one of them was a juvenile.
"They were definitely not dressed appropriately," he said, adding the juvenile hiker was wearing flip-flops.
He said the rescue took so long due to the nature of the task -- getting enough ropes down the steep hill to reach the hikers. They were found between 400 to 600 yards below the overlook.
Caravasos said all three were exposed to the cold through the night, but did not say if any suffered hypothermia. Christopher said one of them suffered a shoulder injury as a result of a fall.
Copyright 2014 - The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.
