Nighttime Trail Rescue: Catskill Fire and West Athens Retrieve Hiker from Dense Terrain

Catskill, NY - Emergency responders and specialized off-road apparatus mobilized Friday evening to locate and extract an injured hiker stranded along the trail system at the Snake Road nature preserve in Greene County.

On the evening of September 18, Catskill Ambulance personnel were dispatched to the preserve off Snake Road for an individual who had suffered an injury along the trail and was unable to walk out under their own power. Due to the remote location, challenging wooded terrain, and distance from paved access roads, EMS requested assistance from the Catskill Fire Company to coordinate a wilderness search and extraction.

Recognizing the need for rough-terrain capabilities, Catskill command requested mutual aid from the West Athens Lime Street Fire Company to deploy an off-road utility task vehicle (UTV) directly to the scene. Operating under dimming daylight and contending with heavy swarms of biting insects deep in the woods, joint rescue crews navigated the preserve's corridors to pinpoint the hiker's location.

Responders packaged the injured hiker, loaded them onto the off-road vehicle, and safely transported the patient out of the dense woods to an awaiting Catskill ambulance staging at the trailhead for medical evaluation and transport.