Emergency services rescued an injured man off the mountain near the chain ladder at Waterval Onder last night, Thursday December 29.

Emer-G-Med’s Martin Jeffrey said, “We got the call at 20:30 that three hikers were in trouble and dispatched a team immediately. We called SARZA and ER24 for assistance.

“Upon arrival, we learnt that only one man was stuck on the mountain. His brother’s wife had managed to climb down in the dark to alert us, while his brother stayed with him.”

It took the Emer-G-Med team 40 minutes to climb the 2.5km stretch of mountainside through dense bush in the pitch dark. That stretch has a 1km elevation, not making the rescue any easier.

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“We were fortunate in that the injured man still had phone signal and enough battery to send us a pin location. He had a fractured ankle and we had to assist him in climbing back down the mountain.”

The team and the injured man took 1.5 hours to climb back down. An ambulance was waiting to take him to Mediclinic Nelspruit. He is in a stable condition.

The entire rescue operation took about 3.5 hours.

Jeffrey said, “The success of this operation was largely due to the seamless co-operation between Emer-G-Med, SARZA and ER24.”

Hikers and trailists are advised to be extra cautious as recent wet conditions have made many trails and hiking routes extremely treacherous.