ARNPRIOR – An Arnprior teenager suffered serious injuries falling from a 20-foot cliff near McLean Avenue yesterday (July 23).

Renfrew OPP was dispatched to Arnprior yesterday afternoon after a young person fell down a 10-foot cliff in Arnprior. An ORNGE air ambulance transported the injured person to hospital.

The rescue was a joint effort between paramedics, fire crews and police to help the young person who took a big fall onto rocks along the waterfront in Arnprior. 

Commander with the County of Renfrew Paramedic Service, Dave Libby, says they were called out to McLean Avenue in Arnprior around 2:45 p.m.

Libby says the teenager had serious, but non life-threatening injuries when emergency crews arrived.

Libby adds they were able to treat and stabilize the individual on scene before air ORNGE landed in the nearby ball fields and transported the patient to the trauma centre in Ottawa. 

Libby says paramedics worked alongside the Ontario Provincial Police and Arnprior Fire Department crews. 

Arnprior fire Chief, Jeff Crawford, says the young man was working on a deck at the top of a steep rocky cliff and lost his footing and fell about 10 feet to the rocks below. 

Crawford says the individual was in an area not easily accessible on a steep rocky slope with a lot of small trees and brush. 

He says firefighters used a chainsaw to cut down some trees to make a path and also dispatched a boat to access from the water. 

Crawford says the patient was carefully carried down to the rescue boat and brought to McLean beach where he were transferred to an ORNGE helicopter.