Hiker falls 60 feet off Canadian peak trying to rescue dog, both survive
A hiker plunged 60 feet onto jagged rocks while desperately trying to save her beloved dog that slipped off the steep edge of a Canadian peak — and both miraculously survived.
Margaux Cohen, 36, was hiking Tricouni Peak in British Columbia with her dog, Zion, and two friends on Aug. 24 when they wandered off the trail and encountered a wall blocking their path back, according to local news outlet Squamish Chief.
As the group attempted to climb over the wall, the pit bull mix lost its footing and began sliding down the mountainside, prompting Cohen to grab his harness.
“I had this instinct to just grab his harness,” the avid hiker told the outlet from her hospital bed in North Vancouver.
“But I did not realize that by doing this, and because of his weight, I was just going to fall. It wasn’t a straight fall. I tumbled down like four times. So I probably fell 20 feet, and then hit my face on the rocks, and then fell again and again and again.”
Cohen said she was conscious during the horrific ordeal, but when it stopped, she looked down at her right leg, realized it was “not in the right shape,” and screamed in agony.
While her cries for help alerted her friends, who called first responders, Cohen was relieved to see her brave pooch alive, sitting beside her and wagging his tail despite an injured paw, the outlet reported.
“My dog was like, sitting next to me, just wagging his tail, like nothing happened,” she said.
“Like he just had the time of his life.”
Cohen and her loyal pup were rescued in the blistering heat more than two hours later and airlifted to the hospital, where she is being treated for a broken leg, according to a GoFundMe.
Having already undergone one surgery and awaiting another on her long road to recovery, Cohen remains grateful to her friends and the search-and-rescue team that saved her and Zion.
“I just believe that someone was watching over me that day,” she told Global News.
Credit to Nypost AND Peoples