A woman was lucky to walk away unhurt after sliding down a steep embankment behind North Island College.
Emergency crews responded to the calls from the woman on her cellphone at 1 p.m. saying she’d gone down an embankment and couldn’t climb back up, Port Alberni Fire Chief Tim Pley said.
The woman couldn’t pinpoint the woman’s location except to say she was behind the college. Emergency personnel initially tried to ping the woman’s phone to pinpoint her whereabouts but the effort failed.
Pley and another firefighter walked into the treeline behind Glenwood Centre then along the creek towards the college until they happened on two police officers who found her.
According to Pley, the woman slid approximately 40-50 feet down the first part of the embankment. The slope increased though and she couldn’t backtrack. She’s lucky she stopped where she did though, Pley said. “I looked up and it was about a 100-foot vertical drop to the creekbed from where she stopped.”
Crews rigged a steep-angle pulley system and winched the woman up the embankment.
The woman claimed to be trying to take a short cut to Walmart when the incident happened.
She was unhurt and walked away from the area on her own.
reporter@albernivalleynews.com
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