PARADISE, Wash. (AP) — A Mount Rainier National Park spokesman says a woman was injured Friday evening near the Jackson Visitor Center at Paradise when she fell through a snow crust onto the hard surface of an electrical transformer.
The unidentified woman was first described as falling into a “sinkhole” in the snow.
Spokesman Kevin Bacher says heat from the transformer buried under 20 feet of snow had melted a large cavern in the snow. The woman walking on the surface broke through the “ceiling” of that cavern and fell at least 10 feet onto the hard surface of the transformer, and from there onto the ground. The spokesman says she suffered multiple traumatic injuries.
Rangers rescued her from the hole and she has been airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. Her condition is not known.
