A young woman was rescued from the Diez Vistas trail on Sunday after spraining her ankle.
Coquitlam Search and Rescue manager Michael Coyle said the team was called at about 4:30 p.m. They used their new software to help them pinpoint the location of the four hikers on the Buntzen Lake trail and sent ground teams in to meet up with them.
North Shore Rescue was then called in to provide a long-line extraction via helicopter.
"If we had our own long-line equipment now this would have been the second or third rescue we could have performed this year," said Coquitlam SAR manager Michael Coyle.
Although 13 Coquitlam SAR members are trained in Helicopter Long Line Rescue (HETS) procedures, the team is still without the necessary equipment. They're waiting on Transport Canada to certify new equipment, a process that has now been in the works for about eight months.
The North Shore team was most recently called in for a Coquitlam rescue of three hikers on Eagle Ridge in mid May, one of the busiest weekends for SAR in B.C.
"We've had quite a few more calls recently, so there is a level of concern for sure," Coyle said about not having their own HETS equipment. "North Shore Rescue is always the busiest search team in the province - it's one of the reasons we got the tool, because we know they're so busy it's quite possible they'll be using it themselves."
Coyle said the long-line rescue was needed Sunday because it's a faster and safer extraction method.
"With an ankle injury it would have been a stretcher carry, and would probably have taken several hours and required some ropes to lower [her] down the steeper sections of the trail."
The remaining three members of the hiking group walked out with the SAR ground team and the rescue was complete by 7:30 p.m.
