A hiker who was injured Monday while trekking over a mountain with others on the east end of Riverside was rescued by firefighters and taken to a hospital.
The “hiker down” call was received shortly before 4 a.m. atop Sugarloaf Mountain, within the Box Springs Mountain Reserve bordering Riverside and Moreno Valley, according to the Riverside Fire Department.
Battalion Chief Bruce Vanderhorst said that a regular engine crew and the department’s Technical Rescue Team, numbering about a dozen personnel, were sent to the location, making their way to the crest of the roughly 2,000-foot mountain.
They discovered the victim, whose identity was not disclosed, “with a group of hikers,” immobilized by unspecified injuries, Vanderhorst said.
He said that paramedics “provided patient care and were able to hike the person down a trail to an ambulance.”
The hiker was taken to Riverside Community Hospital for treatment and was expected to recover. The rescue operation spanned almost three hours, wrapping up just before 7 a.m. Monday.