Vancouver emergency services were called to East 8th Avenue and Commercial Drive Monday (April 24) evening after an individual reportedly fell down an embankment and onto the train tracks below.
A spokesperson for the Vancouver Fire Rescue Service (VFRS), Matthew Trudeau, says that it's unclear how the person fell or how long they were down there but Trudeau tells V.I.A. this "is not the first time."
People reportedly cut holes in the fence around E 8th and climb through to the embankment. Trudeau shares that there was also another individual in the area who was found hanging onto a tree.
The person who fell sustained injuries which required the technical rescue team to place them on a gurney, also known as a basket, in order to raise them up to street level where Vancouver police and the BC Ambulance Service were waiting.
V.I.A. reached out to BC Emergency Health Services and they are reportedly in stable condition.
"Occurrences of a similar nature in this area" have necessitated "a few tech rescues," says Trudeau. So much so that the VFRS technical team was practicing this type of rescue maneuver close by earlier in the day.
VFRS posted a video of the rescue and the individual being lifted by crews to Twitter this morning. Though the clip is only a few seconds, the rescue operation reportedly took a few hours in total.
