‘I think he was just wandering around ... and may have gotten too close to the edge’

A man, believed to be in his teens, slipped down a steep cliff Sunday afternoon in Whatcom Falls Park and had to be rescued by a team that included the Bellingham Fire Department.

The incident occurred at approximately 4:51 p.m. Sunday near the 15-foot Middle Falls, also known as Pixie Falls.

“I don’t think he was jumping or anything like that,” Bellingham Fire Chief Bill Newbold said. “I think he was just wandering around the location off trails and may have gotten too close to the edge.”

Because of the steep hill next to the waterfall, Newbold said “climbing out was not an option, plus he had some injuries we needed to assess.”

South Whatcom Fire Authority assisted with the technical rescue, designing a rope retrieval system, Assistant Chief Rod Topel said.

“The patient had to be brought up a very steep angle in some places and vertical angle in others,” Topel said. “It was a challenging set up, just because of the amount of terrain and the way the system had to be rigged, but it was not anything out of the ordinary.”

Bellingham Mountain Rescue, Whatcom County Search and Rescue and Border Patrol, Search, Trauma and Rescue also assisted with the rescue, Newbold said, and the patient was transported with non-life threatening injuries.

This story was originally published July 30, 2018 at 12:24 PM.