An Alaskan woman fell 60-feet down a cliff because she was texting on her mobile phone. Maria Pestrikoff, of Anchorage, suffered multiple injuries after she walked close to the steep drop to toss a cigarette butt while attempting to send a message and slipped on wet grass. She toppled over, landing on rocks near the incoming tide.
‘She was screaming in agony,’ said her friend, Anthony Burke, who called the fire department after hearing Pestrikoff in distress on the boulders below. She was in the rocks between the boulders and she was calling for help.’
An ambulance took her to Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, and she was flown to an Anchorage hospital. ‘It’s a very hard rescue,’ Bayside Fire chief Bob Himes told the Anchorage Daily News. ‘It’s very technical, and it doesn’t happen that often.’ Rescuers had to act fast because the cold tide was just 10-feet from the injured woman when she fell.
Burke said it had reached her toes before she was lifted to safety. ‘The tide was right up to her toes by the time they were able to get her out,’ he told The Kodiak Daily Mirror. ‘The communication between departments was incredibly good.’
