UPDATE | OCTOBER 10, 2016, 1:15PM
The King County Sheriff’s Office tweeted that at around 1PM that Guardian 2 was able to hoist and airlift the man to Harborview Medical Center.
ORIGINAL STORY
Search and Rescue crews are entering the second day of a complicated and technical mission to evacuate a man from deep in the woods near the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River – a man King County SAR Public Information Officer Alan LaBissoniere described as lucky to be alive.
LaBissonere said it appears the man suffered some kind of medical emergency while alone near the end of the North Fork of the Snoqualmie River sometime Saturday afternoon, October 8, 2016. After spending the night in the cold and rain, hikers stumbled upon the unconscious man Sunday afternoon and called 911.
Rescue crews hiked into the man’s location – described about six miles past the end of North Fork Road in a very technical area. They helped stabilize him and Sno Hawk 10 was called in to hoist the man out of the forest, but fog hampered the helicopter rescue.
Sunday night technical crews from Olympic, Seattle and Tacoma Mountain Rescue were called into to help perform a technical evacuation. LaBissoniere said those crews got to the man’s location around 4AM Monday, October 10th after other SAR crews spent the night helping treat and keep him warm.
The technical evacuation of the man is expected to take about 10 hours. LaBissoniere said it will take a lot of rope work and hoisting for mountain rescue teams to safely get him out of the rugged area. If weather improves there is a chance another helicopter hoist will be attempted.
At this time, the age of the man was not known, nor where he was from. Overnight weekend temperatures in North Bend hovered around 50 degrees.
