Helicopter assists in multihour hiker rescue

Search and Rescue crews are deployed via Los Angeles County Fire Department Helicopter 16 to Rice Canyon as part of an operation to rescue hikers who were stuck in a tree. November 08, 2020. Bobby Block / The Signal.
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Los Angeles County Fire Copter 16 aided in rescuing two hikers who were reportedly stuck in a tree for more than four hours in Rice Canyon Sunday.

L.A. County Fire Department personnel, as well as Search and Rescue units, responded to a medical emergency around noon on The Old Road at the request of the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station, according to Supervisor Bernard Peters. 

Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station search and rescue crews are deployed to Rice Canyon as part of an operation to rescue hikers who were stuck in a tree. November 08, 2020. Bobby Block / The Signal.

“(They) went up into a tree and can’t get down,” Peters said. “We’re trying to see if a helicopter can get out there because Search and Rescue can’t access it on the ground.”

The hikers spent hours in the tree as first responders worked to figure out how to safely extricate the hikers from the tree.

Search and Rescue crews are deployed via Los Angeles County Fire Department Helicopter 16 to Rice Canyon as part of an operation to rescue hikers who were stuck in a tree. November 08, 2020. Bobby Block / The Signal.

After rigging an elaborate belay system to rescue the hikers, Copter 16 returned to a makeshift landing zone nearby to drop off SCV Sheriff’s Station Search and Rescue members.

Signal Photographer Bobby Block contributed to this story.

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