Authorities on are investigating the crash of a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division rescue helicopter in Southern California mountains that left six individuals injured.
The division’s Air Rescue 5 helicopter crashed shortly earlier than 5 p.m. Saturday whereas responding to a automobile that rolled over on a winding street in Angeles Nationwide Forest, the county’s fireplace division mentioned.
All six individuals on board had been airlifted to a hospital with quite a lot of accidents together with fractures and damaged ribs, LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva mentioned Saturday night time.
“They’re in steady situation, some extra banged up than others, however grateful to be alive,” Villanueva instructed reporters outdoors Pomona Valley Medical Heart.
Images from the scene confirmed the broken Tremendous Puma helicopter on its aspect alongside a cliffside roadway in Azusa Canyon close to the San Gabriel Dam.
“The truth that it didn’t roll over and go all the way in which down (the cliff), or that there was no fireplace, is nothing in need of a miracle,” Villanueva mentioned.
5 of the helicopter’s occupants had been a part of a sheriff’s division crew and the sixth was a health care provider on a ride-along from the College of California, Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Instances reported.
The Nationwide Transportation Security Board is investigating the reason for the crash, spokesman Eric Weiss mentioned.
Two paramedics aboard the helicopter extracted the pilot and co-pilot after the crash, the Instances mentioned. Firefighters who had been already on the scene to help the rolled-over automobile had been in a position to deal with the injured as nicely, Villanueva mentioned.
The rescue helicopter makes lots of of flights yearly into among the hardest terrain, usually flying into slim canyons and coping with tough topography.
The helicopter crew has “saved hundreds of lives over time,” Villanueva mentioned.
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