Fire/rescue responded to a 6:01 p.m. alarm Wednesday (Aug 15) to Kawainui Stream for a woman who fell down the embankment of the stream’s gulch.

Rescue crews accessed the site located between the 9-10 mile markers of Mamalahoa Highway (Route 19) via a dirt road through a macadamia nut farm. Rescuers climbed into the gulch finding a 19-year-old woman suffering a head and other injuries to her body from the fall. Crews treated her and placed her in a Billy Pugh basket attached to a 100-foot line to Chopper One to airlift her out of an area with tall trees in dark light conditions.

The woman was taken to a medic unit which transported her to Hilo Medical Center. Rescue personnel used ropes to climb out of the gulch and were back in their station by 8 p.m.