TOWNSHIP D — An Arizona woman injured Tuesday while hiking the Appalachian Trail on Bemis Mountain was flown by helicopter to the Rangeley airport.
Rescuers hiked up the steep mountain south of Rangeley to reach the woman, who was about three-quarters of a mile from the summit, according to a Rangeley Fire Rescue Department post on Facebook.
The Maine Warden Service received a call about 11:50 a.m. from dispatchers at Franklin County Regional Communications Center in Farmington about an injured hiker on the trail about a mile west of Bemis Road in Township D, according to Cpl. John MacDonald, of the Maine Warden Service.
Units from the Warden Service, Rangeley Fire Rescue Department, Franklin County Search and Rescue, NorthStar EMS Backcountry Medical Team and Maine Forest Service went to the scene.
Kelsey Lampher, 28, of Phoenix, and three other people were backpacking on a section of the trail when she injured her ankle while descending a steep section of the trail, MacDonald wrote in an email.
“Due to extremely difficult terrain between Bemis Road and Lampher’s location, she was carried approximately 0.7 miles farther west on the trail to a spot where a Forest Service helicopter was able to land and pick her up. She was flown to the Rangeley Airport, where she was transferred to a NorthStar ambulance,” MacDonald wrote.
It was a great team effort, Rangeley Chief Tim Pellerin said. Helicopter personnel lowered a stokes basket/stretcher so that rescuers could carry the woman up to where the helicopter could land, which he estimated at 3,000 feet of elevation.
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