Hiker rescued near Mt. Abraham

A hiker had to be rescued off the Long Trail in Addison County Wednesday.

The call came in about 10 a.m. that a through hiker on the Long Trail needed help on Mt. Abraham. Volunteer fire departments from surrounding towns geared up for hours in the rain.

"We get a team that's really quick, so two to four people go up as fast as they can," said Lincoln Volunteer Fire Chief Dan Ober.

Chief Ober says it's a pretty typical call -- one they get two or three times a year. Sometimes it's a hiker at the Battell Shelter and other times at the summit. "Once we get a call like this we try to make contact with the patient, try to find out the level of emergency that it is," he said.

In this case there was no major emergency. The chief says the woman was prepared for weeks on the trail, but that was cut short by a medical issue. She was a through hiker and had been on the trail for two weeks and was in great shape but was having an issue... she needed help," Chief Ober said.

It took them about 40 minutes to reach her, and about three hours to carry her out. She was taken away in an ambulance in good spirits. The chief says they got lucky with the rain and the time of day. "It was warm and it was daylight. Oftentimes people wait and wait and wait to call and then they'll call at 5 o'clock, and then we come out in the dark, and then it becomes an issue," he said.

The chief says each call like this takes at least a dozen volunteers away from their full time jobs, and while they don't encourage people to call, he says they're ready to help when needed.