Alder Stream Township, Maine-- More than 50 firefighters, emergency medical personnel and wilderness rescue teams worked through the night Friday to bring out three injured men who had fallen down a 60-foot, rock-strewn gorge into Alder Stream in northern Franklin County.
William Irving, 39, and Lewis Bruns, in his 30s, both from Gray, suffered back injuries and were airlifted by LifeFlight of Maine to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston at about 6 a.m. Saturday.
A third man, Keith Elder, 36, of Windham, broke his ankle but went by private vehicle to a hospital, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife.
Irving and Bruns were in stable condition, a hospital nursing supervisor said Saturday afternoon.
Latti said five friends had been staying at a camp nearby on Alder Stream Road off Route 27. About midnight, Latti said, they were riding their all-terrain vehicles and decided to go off the trail. With only one flashlight, the men walked about 45-feet to view the gorge and falls.
"The brush is very high along the cliff and three of them walked right off the edge," said Latti. Warden Blaine Holding investigated the accident.
Irving and Bruns landed in the bottom in shallow water, while Elder slid down about half-way, Latti said. After making voice contact with the injured men, one friend on the trail ran for help and another scrambled down and pulled Irving, who was unconscious, out of the frigid water.
Assistant Eustis Fire Chief Sidney Shane on Saturday said the area where the men fell is known as a dangerous spot, even in daylight, because of the thick brush, protruding tree roots and rough ground. The fall could have been fatal if not for the water at the bottom, he said.
"The water probably saved them. It broke their fall," he said.
Shane said it took about 45 minutes for the first firefighter to arrive at the remote site, about seven miles in from the highway down a camp road. Three NorthStar EMS personnel trained in backwoods rescue arrived shortly afterwards from their base in Carrabassett Valley, said NorthStar supervisor Mike Senecal.
Immediately, the medical crew, with backpacks filled with emergency supplies, clamored down the cliff. They found the patients, in jeans and light jackets, had been pulled out of the water and up on a rock, but their feet were still in the stream, Senecal said.
The rough terrain only allowed for a tight, 6-by-8-foot clearing beside the stream, forcing the rescuers to stand in the water as they stabilized the victims.
"The first thing we did was to get them warm because hypothermia is the biggest concern," he said.
Emergency medical equipment was lowered down by rope. The patients were secured on backboards, then wrapped in heat-retaining sheets and wool blankets. They were given humidified and heated oxygen to breathe and then placed into litters designed to be used in rope-rescues, according to Senecal.
The NorthStar crew, a Eustis firefighter and a bystander carried the patients about 30-feet downstream away from overhanging trees to a better site for the rescue. The litters were brought to the surface about four hours later using a complex system of ropes and pulleys and then carried to the waiting ambulance. Two LifeFlight medical helicopters picked the men up at a landing strip in Eustis.
"It was dark, steep and treacherous, but it was great how all the fire departments and rescue personnel come together as a team. It was a great job," Senecal said. "This was a very challenging, high-angle rescue in a very remote area."
Involved in the rescue were fire departments and high-angle rescue teams from Eustis, Carrabassett Valley and Rangeley, NorthStar EMS, and North Franklin Rescue.
Copyright 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Republished with permission of the Morning Sentinel.
