COYLE — A helicopter operating in a hastily cleared blufftop area overlooking Tabook Bay hoisted to safety a 46-year-old man who had dangled upside down over the cliff for hours.
“I thought I’d be stuck there forever and die,” Gerald David told a reporter from his hospital bed Monday.
David’s three-hour rescue off Camp Discovery Road ended in darkness late Sunday night when a Coast Guard helicopter from the Port Angeles air station plucked him from his precarious position.
David, who lives on the Coyle Peninsula near the rescue scene, was listed in stable condition at Harborview Medical Center.
Quilcene Fire District Acting Chief Moe Moser said the man was walking the beach along Tabook Bay during low tide and climbed up a steep cliff to look at a cable running along the ledge.
In a bedside interview with KOMO-TV on Monday, David said it was an abandoned tram car cable that “stretched tight from the beach up to the top of the hill.
“I just wanted to climb up to the top of the hill and see where it went,” he said.
“When he got up there, he apparently became entangled in the cable and broke his leg,” Moser said.
“He hung upside down for at least an hour,” Moser said.
“The closest people were quite a ways away at the bottom of the hill on the beach,” David recalled.
“I didn’t know if they could hear me or not because the wind was blowing.”
But someone eventually heard his screams and called 9-1-1. Quilcene fire and rescue workers arrived around 8 p.m. Sunday.
Tide comes in
Moser said the tide had come in by the time crews arrived, and the location where the man was stuck was accessible only by boat.
“A paramedic was taken out by a civilian boat and climbed up the cliff to reach the individual,” Moser said.
“The cliff was a soft, steep incline, and I made the decision to call in support to help get him out of there.”
Coast Guard Group/Air Station Port Angeles dispatched an MH-65C helicopter and crew at 8:32 p.m.
But the arrival of the helicopter was met with more problems.
Because of the heavily wooded location, ground crews were sent in to clear an area of trees before the helicopter crew could attempt the rescue, Moser said.
Chain saws used
“We sent in some guys with chain saws to clear some of the small trees,” Moser said.
“It wasn’t too many of them, and while we aren’t typically in the business of cutting trees, a man’s life was at stake.”
The crew hoisted David into the helicopter at about 11:30 p.m. and flew him to Harborview Medical Center.
Support units from Port Ludlow Fire Rescue, Discovery Bay-Gardiner Fire District and Indian Island Fire also responded, and the Navy and Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office sent marine units to assist.
David said in all his walks on the beach over the years, he’s seen the cable many times — but on Sunday night, he had the urge to climb it.
“I probably wouldn’t do it again,” he said.
“It was kind of dumb, but it could have worked.”
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Reporter Luke Duecy from KOMO-TV, a PDN news partner, contributed to this report.
Reporter Erik Hidle can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at erik.hidle@peninsuladailynews.com.
