NEWRY — A New Hampshire teenager who injured her leg in a hiking fall early Thursday afternoon at a Grafton Loop Trail campsite was carried out on a litter by 9:45 p.m., rescuers said.
The girl, whom Warden Brock Clukey declined to identify, is from Plymouth, N.H. He said she tore ligaments in a knee when she slipped and fell between a couple of rocks.
“I don’t think she broke it, but it was messed up pretty good,” he said.
The girl’s mother met rescuers in Newry and they placed her in the mother’s car, and she drove her daughter home to get medical attention in Plymouth rather than have an ambulance take her to a Maine hospital, Newry fire Chief Bruce Pierce said.
Clukey said the girl was with a Massachusetts hiking group of nine teenagers accompanied by trip leaders who were all backpacking to Katahdin, the northern end of the Maine Appalachian Trail in Baxter State Park.
He said they had been on the Grafton Loop Trail for two days at Sargent Brook Campsite on the backside of Sunday River Whitecap.
The loop trail is a 40-mile trail constructed in 2007 that is on both sides of Route 26. It links with the Appalachian Trail on Baldpate Mountain and on Old Speck in Grafton Notch State Park. The loop connects a series of scenic peaks and other natural features in Grafton Notch north of Newry.
Clukey said rescuers didn’t begin hiking in to the injured girl until about 3:30 to 4 p.m. because the warden service wanted to find out if she could hike down with some group members. However, he said he learned that she couldn’t put any weight on the injured leg.
Clukey then called for help from Hurricane Island Outward Bound in Newry, Mahoosuc Mountain Rescue in Bethel and Newry firefighters.
Newry Fire Chief Pierce said rescuers had to drive to the Nordic Knoll subdivision on Sunday River Whitecap, and then bushwhack in for a distance from a logging road to reach the campsite.
“We brought a litter in because she had a non weight-bearing injury,” he said.
They carried her down the mountain to Pierce’s four-wheel all-terrain vehicle and drove that down the logging road to Pierce’s pickup truck. Pierce said he drove her to the Newry Post Office and lifted her into her mother’s car.
Clukey estimated the carryout distance at a mile. “Everything worked out good,” he said of the rescue.
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