Mountain Rescue Ends Well (+video)

A distressed hiker on Mount Marathon called into City of Seward Dispatch via 911 at 4:33 p.m. on Wednesday, June 12. Dispatch advised the Seward Fire Department that the hiker was calling from his cell phone and had said that “he was in a bad spot.” Fire department personnel made contact with the stranded hiker to determine an approximate location and identify the best access to him.

Phone conversations and visual scanning of the mountain eventually helped locate the hiker who was clinging precariously to the mountainside on a near vertical slope south of the established climbing and hiking paths.

Rescue crews were transported to the top by Seward Helicopter Tours and then hiked down the ridge to a point above the stranded hiker. During the operation, the fire department volunteers set off a flare which brought another couple of good samaritans racing to the scene.

According to SFD Chief Eddie Athey and Assistant Fire Chief Sean Corrigan, the hiker had received a laceration to the head, and was dehydrated and disoriented.

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