London firefighters had to rappel down a steep embankment in the northwest end to save a teenager who had fallen on Thursday.
Emergency crews were called to the riverbank behind the Child and Parent Resource Institute on Sanatorium Rd. around 9:20am after a 15-year-old girl fell roughly 6m.
A large tree kept the teen from falling to the bottom of the embankment into the Thames River.
"Because of being in close proximity to the Thames River, rescue was made with our Technical Rescue Team rappelling down, placing the woman into a rescue basket, and then raising her back up the embankment," said District Fire Chief Shawn Fitzgerald.
Despite being impeded by trees and bushes, the rescue took firefighters approximately 30 minutes to complete.
The teen was taken to hospital as a precaution.
"Her neck was immobilized using a collar, just as a precaution in case there was a neck injury. This is standard procedure in a rescue," said Fitzgerald. "Otherwise, there was no obvious signs of trauma on the lady."
Fitzgerald said rescues like this are infrequent.
"I had a similar event at the CPRI about a year and a half ago where another person had gone down the embankment and we had to use the Technical Rescue Team to retrieve them," said Fitzgerald. "These events don't occur that often, maybe ten times a year."
