Pacific Crest Trail Hiker Rescued from Cliffside in Harrowing Video

A search and rescue team saved a Pacific Crest Trail hiker who was stuck on a cliffside in southern California during an “intense” operation caught on video on Sunday, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.

In an Instagram post, the department said that the unnamed hiker became trapped on a cliffside near Whitewater, California, and managed to alert emergency services through her Garmin device. By the time a helicopter managed to lower a rescuer to her, she had been perched on the side of the face for an hour.

“Due to her very precarious spot, which she was exhausted from that position for over an hour, and with a heavy pack with unsure footing, the rescue specialist determined the safest option was to bear hug her and climb to the top,” the department wrote. “He just could not risk asking her to lift her arms that she was clearly death-gripping the cliff with in order to place a rescue strap on.”

At one point in the video, as the rescuer coordinates with the helicopter crew over radio, the hiker shouts that she is falling; the rescuer urges her to grab onto his back, then tells the helicopter to carry them away from the wall. When the responding crew member asks whether he wants the helicopter to carry them left or right, the rescuer replies that he doesn’t care.

“Just get us away from the wall, you’re dragging us right into the wall,” he says. Over the course of the next few minutes, the helicopter crew slowly works the pair up the cliff until they’re finally resting securely on top of it.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s aviation unit has chronicled its rescues of a handful of hikers on Instagram over the past few months, including a 23-year-old PCT hiker in “serious medical distress” who was airlifted out alongside his two companions.