JOYCE — A 57-year-old Chimacum man was taken to Olympic Medical Center with a leg injury after being trapped under a fallen tree for almost two hours off Whiskey Creek Beach Road, said Clallam County Deputy Shaun Minks.
“He’s in OK condition, possibly some broken bones and chest scrapes, nothing real serious,” Minks said on Wednesday, adding the man was too heavily sedated to give permission to have his name released.
An employee for a private logging company was conducting a land survey in the area of Whiskey Creek Beach Road and state Highway 112, about 2½ miles west of Joyce, at about 9:17 a.m. Wednesday when he spotted the man, Minks said.
The injured man reported being pinned since about 7:30 a.m., he said.
The man told fellow employees he was trying to buck a log — cutting a felled and delimbed tree into logs — when a log above him on the hill slid and pinned him, Minks said.
Clallam County Fire District 4 Chief Greg Waters said: “He was very lucky that surveyor found him. We got to him and got him onto a wheeled basket and up a steep muddy slope 50 yards to the ambulance.
“He was not visible from the road unless you knew exactly where to look,” Waters said.
“He was on the verge of hypothermia and had injuries to his right leg.”
The incident occurred on private land where the land owner had hired a logging company, and the injured man was the company owner, Waters said. He didn’t know if the man was accompanied by a logging crew.
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Reporter Brian Gawley can be reached at brian.gawley@sound publishing.com.
