Teen hospitalized with serious injuries after falling down cliff near Pennybacker Bridge
Austin-Travis County EMS tweeted they, along with Austin Fire, are responding to a "wilderness rescue" near the 5400 block of Courtyard Drive Thursday morning.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin-Travis County EMS tweeted they, along with Austin Fire, responded to a “wilderness rescue” near the 5400 block of Courtyard Drive and Pennybacker Bridge on Loop 360 Thursday morning.
What they arrived to was a female who had fallen off a cliff.
AFD battalion chief Travis Walden said the female, approximately 18 years old, was walking her dog near the cliff. The dog slipped and went over the cliff, then she went after it.
Walden didn’t know exactly how far the female fell, but called it a “significant fall.” Walden said after she landed, she slid down a 45-degree slope and ended up between some trees. The technical rescue team made contact with her and was able to get her out.
Walden said the female suffered an ankle injury and had some back pain, and he considered her in good condition considering the fall.
“It’s not uncommon to make rescues like his,” Walden said. “The trails are narrow and the rocks are slippery.”
In a final update from ATCEMS, they said the patient is being taken to Dell Seton Medical Center via Star Flight with serious, but not expected to be life-threatening, injuries.
Crews used a ropes system to get the female off the hill and on to a boat. They took her to the other side of the lake to load her into a Star Flight helicopter, ATCEMS said in a tweet update.
They declared a trauma alert, and say a female in her late teens suffered serious injuries as the result of a fall, ATCEMS said in an initial alert tweet.
Austin Police Department said one lane of Loop 360 southbound is closed at the Pennybacker Bridge.
The call came in to emergency personnel around 10:25 a.m. ATCEMS disseminated information through a five-tweet thread on Twitter.