Volunteer firefighters aid injured woman in Ettersburg airlift response

A fall in the Ettersburg area turned into an airlift after Telegraph Ridge volunteer firefighters reached an 86-year-old woman around 3 p.m. Tuesday and began her care in the field. In a stretch of Southern Humboldt where roads are long, access is difficult and hospitals are far from the backcountry, the first minutes belonged to the volunteer company that could get there fast enough to assess her and bridge the gap to higher-level transport.

Peter Lawsky of the Telegraph Ridge Volunteer Fire Department said the crew responded after the woman was injured in the fall. The woman was unconscious when five Telegraph Ridge members arrived and started treating her, according to the department’s account. The response showed how the district’s work extends well beyond fire suppression. Its mission includes emergency medical aid, and Humboldt County fire-protection materials describe local fire services as covering EMS and rescue work as well.

That role matters most in places like Ettersburg, where volunteer firefighters often serve as the county’s closest emergency medical presence. Telegraph Ridge says two of its members are also on the Southern Humboldt County Technical Rescue Team, which Humboldt County describes as serving roughly 1,000 square miles. In practice, that means the same local system that answered Tuesday’s medical call is part of a wider rescue network built to cover a large and rugged portion of the county.

The response also fit a pattern in Ettersburg. In April 2023, Telegraph Ridge firefighters answered another medical emergency on Doody Ridge Road, where five members treated an unconscious patient until Garberville ambulance personnel determined the person was serious enough to need a medevac. Tuesday’s call again depended on that sequence: local volunteers first, ambulance or air transport second, and a remote patient stabilized in between.

Telegraph Ridge’s emergency role has been built over decades. The Telegraph Ridge Fire Protection District was formed on March 14, 1990, and its boundaries were expanded on November 10, 2015. By 2020, district leaders were asking voters for more support through a parcel-tax measure that said existing funding was not enough to provide adequate fire protection and emergency services.

The broader community has also organized around the station. The Ettersburg Fire Safe Council was founded on May 31, 2022 after a community emergency response meeting at the Ettersburg Fire Station, reinforcing how central the volunteer department has become to daily safety in this remote part of Southern Humboldt.