A team of Coast Guard rescuers medevaced a 70-year-old man to Bartlett Regional Hospital early Tuesday morning after he fell from a 30-foot cliff near Funter Bay.
The man, whose name has not been released, was hunting with a group of people when he fell. Another member of the hunting party, who works for Captial City Fire/ Rescue, called the Juneau Police Department to report the emergency, according to Lt. David Campbell, a JPD spokesperson.
Shortly before midnight, JPD notified the Coast Guard, and rescuers scrambled a helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Sitka and a response boat from Coast Guard Station Juneau to rescue the man, according to Petty Officer Kelly Parker, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard.
Rescuers reached the man, who sustained a head injury, at about 12:40 a.m. They flew him to Juneau and transferred him to emergency responders about 20 minutes later.
Bartlett spokesperson Jim Strader said the Coast Guard brought in a man of the same age with similar injuries at about 1 a.m. Without a name, however, he could not confirm that this was the man who fell in Funter Bay. The man who matched the description was medevaced to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle shortly after he arrived at Bartlett, Strader said.
“A situation where someone would be medevaced is usually critical,” Strader said, but he was unable to confirm the current condition of the man or his condition when he arrived at Bartlett.
A Harborview Medical Center spokesperson was unable to confirm the man’s condition without his name.
Weather conditions were favorable during the rescue operation, and “nothing out of the ordinary was reported,” Parker said.
Funter Bay is located on the northwest side of Admiralty Island, about 20 miles southwest of Juneau.
The Coast Guard conducts about 90 medevacs per year, Parker said.
