Two days after falling down a cliff  and being trapped between two boulders, a man was freed and hoisted to safety on Saturday.

The victim, who is still in a serious condition at Albert Luthuli Hospital, apparently slipped and fell while he was walking in the mountains 40 km outside Ndwedwe.

His body wedged in a narrow crevice between two six feet high rocks.

The Specialised Rescue Unit, Netcare 911, Police Search and Rescue, the SAPS K9 Unit and worked together to hoist the man to safety using a rope rescue system.

Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said the rescuers used a two hundred meter rope to descend down the side of the mountain, only to discover they were still several meters above him.

“Rescuers performed a very technical maneuver as they had to add another thirty meter line to their rope to continue their descent. Once the rescue officer got to his level they had to pendulum themselves around the rock to get access to the patient. After putting a Kendrick extrication device around him, they put him into a rescue harness, connected him to the rope system and lowered him to a ledge below,” said Botha.

The rescuers then immobilized him in a stokes basket and pulled him back up the cliff.

An AMS helicopter airlifted him to hospital.

The entire rescue effort took about five hours to complete.