Woman medevaced from wedding proposal

The Washington Post tells the story of a man who thought proposing marriage to his girlfriend on the Billy Goat Trail here in Montgomery County, Maryland was a romantic idea. Kinda backfired, though.

A man took his girlfriend hiking Sunday afternoon on the gorgeous — albeit rocky and rough — Billy Goat Trail, on national parkland near Great Falls. At some point, he popped the question. She said yes.

As they continued their walk, the woman apparently slipped, fell down a rock face and was injured. With no way to reach her easily, emergency responders used a U.S. Park Police helicopter to pluck her off the path.

Here’s the WP video of the helicopter extraction of the woman;

A first responder’s story (in the comments) differs a bit from the Washington Post story, but then two different people with differing vantage points see different things;

mitchgreene wrote:
I am a Wilderness First Responder and was the first on the scene. The accident actually occurred right behind me less than 30 seconds after I had been speaking with the patient. The author was given some incorrect details (minor in the grand scheme of things):
1) the patient fell from a standing height while waiting to go down a traverse of about 100 feet; she did not fall “down a rock face.”
2) the was at the top of the traverse in a safe location not “about 10 feet down” when she fell. She moved even farther from the traverse, in an attempt to leave the trail on her own, when she became short of breath and began exhibiting signs and symptoms of shock. It was in this location, that the county team treated her.
3) the patient lost responsiveness for less than 3 seconds.

The woman’s injuries are not life threatening. I hope their marriage is less dramatic than their engagement thus far.

Category: Media