TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A 33-year-old man was airlifted off of Xueshan (Snow Mountain) to Dongshi Township in Taichung City and sent to a local hospital on Tuesday (Feb. 15), two days after he was injured while climbing the mountain.
The man, surnamed Gou (郭), belonged to a three-member mountain climbing team who had applied to climb Xueshan from Saturday to Tuesday (Feb. 12 – 15), CNA reported.
However, on Sunday the Taichung Fire Bureau received a report of Gou suffering a suspected fracture on his left leg, lower back pain and being unable to walk after a fall in a snow-capped cirque near the summit of the mountain. The fire bureau dispatched four rescuers to the scene, per CNA.
A team who was engaging in snow climbing training near the accident scene helped out by assisting in moving Gou to a tent at a lower site close to the scene to wait for rescue, CNA said.
However, as the weather in the mountainous area had been poor over the past few days, a helicopter rescue was impracticable.
The bureau said in a press release on Tuesday that search and rescue workers reached the injured hiker on Monday afternoon. After having assessed the severity of his injuries, they recommended airlift rescue over carrying him down the mountain.
On Tuesday morning, Gou, along with the leader of the team—a foreigner who was having back pain and feeling unwell—was lifted off the mountain to a riverside park in Dongshi. The two were sent to Dongshih Farmers' Hospital for treatment, per CNA.
(CNA photo)
