ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – A hiker who tumbled over the edge of a waterfall on the Canon Brook Trail here Saturday suffered multiple injuries before coming to rest nearly 40 feet below.
According to reports the 44-year-old man, from Brownville, was hiking on the trail on the east side of Cadillac Mountain in the rain around 1:30 p.m. lost his footing while crossing a rain-swollen stream, slid down smooth ledges and over the edge of the waterfall. He struck a ledge on the way down but continued to fall.
The man’s family and other hikers helped get him out of the water at the bottom but quickly realized he was too injured to walk out on his own.
More than 20 park rangers and members of Mount Desert Island Search and Rescue helped lower the man to more a move level section of trail and then carry him out to Route 3. The effort took nearly three hours. He was taken to the emergency room in the Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor by Bar Harbor Ambulance.
The spot where the man fell is close to the place where a woman suffered a severe ankle injury earlier this year and had to be rescued. Also earlier this spring, a man who injured his leg on the Cadillac Mountain South Ridge Trail, which the Canon Brook Trail intersects, had to be carried to the summit and evacuated by Lifeflight helicopter.