Woman survives falling and tumbling 150-feet at Washington state waterfall site

A woman sustained serious injuries this week after falling and tumbling more than 150 feet down an embankment at a Washington state waterfall popular with hikers, authorities said.

The fall at Racehorse Falls near Deming, Washington, on Tuesday afternoon was the fifth one at the attraction this year, Whatcom County Fire District 14 said in a statement Wednesday.

The 25-year-old woman fell 50 to 60 feet initially then tumbled down an additional 100 feet of “slippery rock slope” before reaching bottom, the fire district said.

“Our crews rappelled down, packaged the patient into a litter, and lifted her out of the canyon,” the fire district said. “Firefighters then carried her out the 1/3 mile trail using our wheeled litter.”

A Bellingham Fire Department medic unit rushed her to a hospital, it said. District Assistant Chief David Moe said by email Saturday that the woman was stabilized at a hospital in Bellingham before she was transferred to a facility in Seattle.

Her exact condition was unavailable, he said.

Though the lush waterfall near the U.S.-Canada border and about 100 miles north of Seattle is a draw for hikers, its rainy climate and rocky environment can make for a perilous trek.

The Racehorse Creek area is home to 50-million-year-old leaf fossils, and ancient landslide, and a modern landslide that created a 90-foot scarp in 2009, the state Department of National Resources says in a primer on the area.

The waterfall itself plunges 169 feet, the department says. A warning sign at the attraction warns visitors they are near a cliff’s edge with no routine access to the bottom.