Emergency Crews Respond After Hiker Falls From Cliff at Willow River State Park

Crews from St. Croix EMS, and a Life Link helicopter responded Sunday afternoon when a hiker fell near Willow Falls at .

Willow River State Park Manager Aaron Mason said the woman was hiking off trail with some friends when she fell about 20 feet and landed on the rocks.

"She has multiple facial and arm injuries, but she was concious," said St. Croix EMS Chief Eric Christensen. 

The call came into the emergency dispatch center at 12:18 p.m., according to Christensen. The patient was loaded into the helicopter and on her way to Regions Hospital less than 45 minutes later. Christensen said the time from patient contact to flight time was about 15 minutes.

The incident required several points of coordination and involved at least four agencies. In addition to the park rangers on the scene, a fire team, a rescue team, an ambulance team, two paramedics and a Life Link helicopter team assisted in the call.

"We probably had three operations going on under one umbrella," Christensen said. "It turns into a big operation when we've got incident command, we've got operations, and we've got the landing zone operations. Because of initial reports, we weren't sure if we were going to have to use ropes team. Park rangers relayed us information that none of that would be needed."

The Willow Falls Hill Trail (Gray Trail) is too narrow and steep for the ambulance to navigate, but the EMS team was able to use one of its four-wheel-drive vehicles to get to the scene.

"What we do in that situation is treat the patient and load the patient into the back of the Durango," Christensen said.

The vehicle transported the patient to a makeshift landing zone in the parking lot at  and where the helicopter was waiting.