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A California Highway Patrol helicopter crew rescues a man clinging to the side of a sheer cliff. Last Thursday, a CHP chopper crew responded to a call to rescue a man clinging to a ledge on a cliff near Mussel Rock Beach on the San Francisco Peninsula. After a difficult search, the crew finally spotted the man about 500 feet down the side of a steep 900-foot cliff.
Working against heavy winds, flight officer and paramedic David Arias was lowered on a tether down to the man, who attempted to grab onto the officer’s legs at first. "He grabbed onto me, dangerous thing he did,” Arias explains. “If I swung away from him, potentially he'd fallen off the cliff." But then seconds later Arias managed to get the man securely into a harness and he was lifted away to safety.
The man had fallen from the top of the cliff to the precarious spot on the cliff where the crew found him, but only sustained minor scrapes and bruises. As a precaution, he was taken to a local hospital, but not before thanking the crew for saving his life.