A 27-year-old woman from Georgia was airlifted off Mt. Hood on Sunday night after she was hit by a boulder during a morning climb and broke her leg, according to a climber with Portland Mountain Rescue.
Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office did not return calls seeking more information about the rescue, including the woman’s name and the extent of her injuries.
The woman, her boyfriend and a group of their friends were climbing up a stretch of the mountain called 1 o’clock Couloir, said Erik Broms of Portland Mountain Rescue. Around 9:30 a.m., a boulder about twice the size of a basketball fell on the woman and broke her lower leg, Broms said.
The woman’s friends carried her up to the summit and called 9-1-1.
Seven Portland Mountain Rescue members and two from AMR’s Reach and Treat team responded, Broms said, helping to stabilize the woman and determining a helicopter was needed to get her safely off the mountain.
Broms did not know the woman’s name.
“They were pretty calm, they knew what to do to keep her calm,” he said of the woman’s friends, adding that it’s rare to have a helicopter rescue a climber from the summit.
The helicopter reached the group around 7 p.m., he said, and took the woman to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.
— Laura Gunderson