What do you do if you injure yourself while hiking in the woods of New York State? I don’t mean that you got a scratch from a bush or the limb of a pine tree smacked you in the face. I mean a legit injury that makes it impossible for you to walk out of the forest on your own power. What do you do?

For one hiker in Essex County recently, he needed assist from 8 New York State Forest Rangers, an ATV, backpack carriers and a wheeled litter to make it out safely. What’s a wheeled litter?

On Monday July 25, according to New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, a 53-year-old man from Hamilton, his wife and their dog were hiking Hurricane Mountain in the Adirondacks. At some point that morning the man suffered a knee injury and realized he needed help.

A call came in to Ray Brook Dispatch asking for assistance. A total of 8 New York State Forest Rangers joined the mission and eventually reached the party in the woods. Rangers splinted the knee but it was determined that the injured man would not be able to put pressure on the knee enough to walk.

In the picture above you can see the backpack carriers used to transport the injured hiker down the steep and rocky terrain of the trail. Once they got out of that section Rangers used a wheeled litter, which is a basically a wheel attached to a stretcher, to get the man to an ATV.

The last mile of the rescue was handled via ATV before getting the hiker to Elizabethtown Hospital for follow-up examinations. This ordeal started shortly before 12 Noon and was completed by 7pm. Great work, once again, by NY State Forest Rangers Balerno, Black, Burns, Curcio, Martin, Mecus, and O’Connor.