A teenager who plunged 400 feet from a dangerous canyon in Washington state over Memorial Day weekend walked away with only minor injuries, the Mason County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.
The teen was walking along a former path under the High Steel Bridge, one of the highest railroad bridges in the U.S., when he fell Saturday, authorities said.
“We’ve been telling people to stay off these trails because they are dangerous, but people either haven’t seen or are ignoring the warning signs,” said Tim Ripp, a Mason County sheriff’s patrol corporal who was part of the rescue mission. .
Authorities have not identified the teen, who suffered only abrasions to both arms and was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation. NBC affiliate KING of Seattle reported that he is 19 years old.
Five to seven people fall from the bridge each year, and the majority die, Ripp said, even though the area is posted with scattered warning signs, including one describing how steep, slippery and unsafe the bridge is.
During the two-hour rescue mission, officers and firefighters used a rope and harness to scale the bridge and rescue the teen, the county sheriff’s office said.
“Put him in a harness and took him all the way back up,” West Mason Fire Chief Matthew Welander said, according to KING. “He walked across a wash place that a lot of people use and it became a kind of path.”
It ended all the way at the river, he added.
Officials said a lack of respect for nature and failure to pay attention are part of the problem as people continue to fall from the bridge.
Referring to the teen, Welander said: “He was incredibly lucky,” the station reported.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
