Banff’s rescuers were kept busy as a big dump of snow hit the mountains, Sunday (Feb. 17).
A 15-year-old girl, who suffered some kind of seizure while skiing in an area known as the Back Door just beyond the boundary of Sunshine Village, was taken to Foothills Hospital in Calgary.
STARS air ambulance met the girl at Banff’s Mineral Springs Hospital, but poor weather forced the helicopter to put down in Canmore and she was taken into Calgary via ground ambulance with non-life threatening injuries.
“The Sunshine ski patrol, a doctor there and the paramedics did an amazing job to stabilize her,” said Marc Ledwidge, Parks Canada’s manager of visitor safety for the mountain parks.
Rescuers were then called to the Lake Louise ski area around 4:45 p.m. where a man in his 30s injured his knee while skiing in the Maintenance Cliffs area just outside the resort’s boundary.
Alpine Helicopters pilot Todd Cooper flew two rescuers to the site in stormy weather. One of the rescuers helped sling the injured skier out, while the other guided the three remaining skiers back to the ski area.
“Todd was able to sling that skier out in the stormy weather at the end of the day. Thanks to Todd, we were able to get him out quickly,” said Ledwidge. “If he hadn’t been able to pull it off, we would have been there for a quite a few more hours.”
That same day, rescuers were called to Bow Falls where a nine-year-old girl was reported missing, but was found safe and sound before they arrived at the scene.
They also managed to assist a man believed to have been suffering from kidney stones at Shadow Lake Lodge and transported him to Mineral Springs Hospital in Banff.
