A 20-year-old man was airlifted to hospital after he was injured jumping from the Devil’s Ladder, a rock face that towers 30 metres (about 100 feet) above Comox Lake.
“He didn’t calculate his fall and he hit the rock on the way down and gashed his knee pretty bad,” said Cumberland Deputy Fire Chief Stephane Dionne.
There was concern that the man, who was conscious, also had internal bleeding after the incident on Tuesday, Dionne said. The man was also complaining of back pain.
“From there we had the medevac coming in — a helicopter coming in with a flight doctor,” Dionne said. “When they assessed him, they decided to fly him down to Victoria.”
Further details of the man’s condition are not known.
Dionne said the incident was called in as a water rescue, but by the time firefighters got to the nearest boat launch “Good Samaritans” with a Sea-Doo had already pulled the man from the lake and carried him to shore.
The Devil’s Ladder is well-known as a spot for “thrill seekers,” Dionne said.
“It’s really dangerous, and normally we might have one or two calls a year in that location.”
Despite what happened, Dionne said he expects people will still be jumping.
He warned there is potential for a bad injury anytime someone jumps from above 25 feet.
“It’s not a safe place to go,” Dionne said. “You can go and look, but never jump from there.”
The cliffs at View Royal’s Thetis Lake Regional Park, which are up to 18 metres (about 60 feet) high and also attract jumpers, have been incident-free for the past two years, said View Royal Fire Chief Paul Hurst.
In 2017, there were four serious incidents in one week.
Hurst thinks that the Capital Regional District’s hiring of people to patrol Thetis Lake daily has improved the situation there. He said the patrols could be leading to less alcohol in the park and thereby reducing cliff-related issues.
