Injured hiker carried down from Camden’s Bald Mountain
First responders tend to the injured woman, stabilizing and then transporting her down the trail from the top of Bald Mountain in Camden. (Photo courtesy Camden Fire Dept.)
It is a slow and careful process transporting an injured patient down from the top of a mountain, and takes many strong hands. (Photo courtesy Camden Fire Dept.)
Camden Fire Department, North East Ambulance, and a Camden police cruiser take over the parking lot at Barnestown Road while waiting for the carry crew to bring an injured female down from Bald Rock. (Photo by Sarah Thompson)
First responders tend to the injured woman, stabilizing and then transporting her down the trail from the top of Bald Mountain in Camden. (Photo courtesy Camden Fire Dept.)
It is a slow and careful process transporting an injured patient down from the top of a mountain, and takes many strong hands. (Photo courtesy Camden Fire Dept.)
Camden Fire Department, North East Ambulance, and a Camden police cruiser take over the parking lot at Barnestown Road while waiting for the carry crew to bring an injured female down from Bald Rock. (Photo by Sarah Thompson)
CAMDEN — It took Camden firefighters and local search and rescue teams more than an hour just to descend from Bald Mountain while carrying an injured adult female in a carrying basket.
Earlier, the particular hiker had fallen, striking her head near the summit, but was able to call 911, initiating a large response with multiple team members available to take over carrying one of the six handles as arms get tired along the way.
The crew was called to Bald Mountain at 8:32 a.m., Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023, but didn’t get back to the parking lot until after 11 a.m.
Bald, which has a parking lot on Barnestown Road, just inside the Camden-Hope town line, is sometimes mistaken for Bald Rock Mountain, which is within the Camden Hills State Park. Due to this name misinterpretation, some Lincolnville firefighters and search and rescue team members went to the Youngtown Road parking lot and hiked up the multi-use trail before being informed, through a second team notification, that rescue operations had been rerouted to the other location, many miles away.
For more than an hour, the Camden fire chief, Chris Farley, maintained incident command from the Bald Rock parking lot. With him were the crew from North East Ambulance and a Camden police officer. Once the patient was delivered to the parking lot by the firefighters and search and rescue, she was transported to Pen Bay Medical Center for evaluation.
