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WILKES-BARRE — Rescue crews used an aerial ladder truck Thursday afternoon to hoist an injured girl from Mill Creek after she crashed her bike and fell 20 feet to the rocks below.
The 16-year-old girl suffered non-life threatening injuries, said Wilkes-Barre Fire Chief Jay Delaney. The girl was taken by ambulance to Geisinger Wyoming Valley in Plains Township shortly after 2 p.m. Federal health regulations prohibited him from identifying the girl, Delaney said.
According to at-the-scene accounts, the girl and another male were riding bicycles down Miller Street, approaching the bridge at the intersection of East Main and North Washington streets. She veered off the roadway and struck a stone wall next to the bridge, sending her and her purple bike plummeting to the nearly dry creek bed.
State troopers in the area were first on the scene around 1:20 p.m. and rendered aid to the girl in the creek bed. Wilkes-Barre and Plains Township firefighters and police responded and closed the intersection of Miller and East Main streets for a tactical rescue in the Miners Mill section of the city.
“You watch it; it was teamwork. It was just teamwork. Everyone just executed their job properly. The young lady is up out of the creek channel and on her way to the hospital,” Delaney said. “All the training paid off today.”
Firefighters wrapped the girl in blankets and secured her in a rigid stretcher known as a “Stokes basket.” Above, ropes were rigged to the underside of the platform of the aerial ladder extended over the bridge. Firefighters raised the ladder, lifting the basket to the bridge decking where the girl was then transferred to a gurney and wheeled to a nearby ambulance.
Megan Patterson, Delaney’s daughter, said she heard the cries of the girl and saw one of the troopers going to help the girl.
“He went down through the woods and crawled through the creek. He was the first one here,” Patterson said.
Trooper George Layaou ran to the girl after being alerted to the crash by the other bike rider.
“He was up on the bridge yelling for help,” Layaou said.
Delaney lauded the work of the city departments and gave special thanks to state police and Plains Township. The township border is close by and Plains’ first responders brought additional resources to the scene. “They were a huge help,” he said.
