GIBRALTAR, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — It took first responders two and a half hours to rescue a woman who fell 40-50 feet at Peninsula State Park over the weekend.
Gibraltar Fire Chief Andy Bertges said the 32-year-old woman was in the Eagle Tower overflow parking lot when she got too close to a ledge and lost her footing. She fell onto the Eagle Trail below.
Bertges credits bystanders with helping lead rescue crews to the woman.
“The bystanders down below who saw her, or if it were her friends, they made their way up to her,” he said. “I don’t know how they found this trail or how they created this little trail to get to her, but they made their way to her, and then from there they had people down below waiting for our first responders and led them up to her, which cut off a lot of time in the operation.”
Rescuers needed to take her several more feet down to a boat in Eagle Harbor. She was then airlifted to the hospital. No update on her condition was available Monday.
“It was very difficult,” Bertges said. “The terrain posed issues. There was dead and downed (trees), loose rock. The shelf itself wasn’t flat at all. They had to decline to another edge, which dropped, I think 20-30 feet, and then the terrain from where it landed we had low angle, so then that dropped another 20 or 30 feet as well. The rescue in general was real tight, it was at night. It was just very technical.”
The rescue effort took coordination from people across the county, Bertges said, especially since the Gibraltar Fire Department doesn’t have people skilled in climbing ropes to make rescues.
