Firefighters airlifted an injured hiker off the hillside in Makiki Friday morning.
Officials say a man in his 60s was hiking Makiki Loop Trail when he slipped and fell, injuring his back.
“We had the Makiki station go up and meet him at the trail, at the point of his injury, and we called in for Rescue as well as Air 1, packaged him up and flew him out,” said Paul Miguel, Acting Battalion Chief, Honolulu Fire Dept.
Because of all the trees, firefighters on Air 1 canvassed the area first to plan the rescue.
“Sometimes when you have a lot of canopy, it’s hard to get the basket in there so we operate safely, so as long as he could find a point as well as the Makiki station who was on the ground could find a point that they could agree upon, then we came back out, grabbed the basket and went back in for him,” Miguel said.