By Donna M. Perry
Sun Journal
TOWNSHIP D, Maine — Rescuers helped an injured Florida woman down a wet, steep section of the Appalachian Trail on Wednesday, Maine Warden Kris MacCabe said.
Carol Hammet Kirk, 69, of Jacksonville had been hiking with two other women about the same age when Hammet Kirk slipped and fell and broke her wrist Tuesday, Rangeley Fire and Rescue Chief Rudy Davis said.
The women began the nearly 2,200-mile trek in Georgia and planned to hike it through to Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park in Maine, MacCabe said.
The women left Andover in Oxford County on Tuesday and were able to make it to the Bemis Mountain lean-to in Township D near Rangeley on Tuesday night, Davis said. Hammet Kirk spent the night with a broken wrist, he said.
The hikers left that lean-to at about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday and were making their way slowly down the trail, he said.
Another hiking party called 911 to report Hammet Kirk’s injury when they could access cell service, Davis said.
The Rangeley department received the call at about 11:45 a.m. and firefighters and NorthStar Emergency Medical Service responders went into action.
A first-response team, including medic Steve Smith, hiked up the mountain from the trail head, which is west of the Height of Land off Route 17, to meet the woman about 2 to 3 miles up the trail, Davis said. They reached her at about 1 p.m. and treated her before walking slowly down Bemis Mountain toward the dirt Bemis Track Road, he said.
In the meantime, Rangeley Fire and Rescue Captain Clyde Chapman was assembling a second team, including firefighters and those trained in back-country rescue who would go up with ropes that were used to help the woman get down the steep, wet trail.
The last mile to mile and a half is a very steep descent, Davis said.
As soon as rescuers received the coordinates of the location, the second team was sent up. The ropes were set up to be used as a railing for the injured woman to hold onto, MacCabe said.
About 20 rescuers responded, including four wardens and a state forest ranger, he said. It was raining, sleeting and spitting snow, and it was one of the toughest sections of the trail between Andover and Route 17, he said.
Once Hammet Kirk made it down the mountain, she was taken by ambulance to a Rumford hospital, Davis said.
The Rangeley Fire Ladies’ Auxiliary had food and coffee ready back at the fire station when rescuers arrived.
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