No updates given after two hikers 'severely' injured on Sandia trail

A day after three hikers were injured by a dislodged boulder on a popular mountain trail — two of them severely enough to be airlifted off the mountain — questions remain as to what their conditions are and what led to the injuries.

And it is unclear who has the answers.

Albuquerque Fire Rescue, which handled the release of information on Wednesday, gave no other details or updates on Thursday.

AFR spokesman Jason Fejer didn’t answer questions on the hikers’ conditions or elaborate on how they got hurt. He said the agency didn’t know and gave no indication of who might have the information.

“These were patients that required a medical response and treatment for serious injuries,” Fejer said. “We rarely get updates and even when we do it is usually protected patient information under (HIPAA).”

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, protects “individually identifiable health information,” which does not include a patient’s medical condition, which is often shared by local agencies after critical incidents.

Here’s what is known:

Around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, AFR was dispatched to the Embudo Trailhead for a call about a boulder that rolled down a hill and “possibly crushed three people,” AFR Shift Cmdr. Jason Charlton said in an email summary.

In another summary released about a half-hour later, Capt. Lloyd Rantanen said AFR was dispatched to the Embudo Trailhead for reports of multiple patients “trapped or injured” about two miles up the trailhead.

Rantanen said at the time of the call, 25 hikers were located on the mountain. Of those 25, according to an Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council Facebook post, three were injured after a dislodged boulder struck them.

The first patient had a minor lower leg injury and was assisted by rescuers down to the command post, where the patient was further evaluated and treated. The patient went to the hospital, Rantanen said.

He said the other two hikers were “severely” injured.

They were evaluated and initially treated by rescuers before being lifted and taken to a transfer point lower down the mountain by a Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office helicopter before Fire Rescue took them to Albuquerque Ambulance, which took them to a hospital.

Rantanen said the rest of the hikers were escorted down by first responders to the command post, where they were evaluated for injuries. A roll call was performed to ensure everyone was accounted for.

The entire rescue took about three hours, he said.

“Favorable winds allowed New Mexico State Police helicopter ABLE 7 to extract the two critical patients saving us from a trail carryout that would have gone late into the night with serious medical in difficult terrain in decreasing temperature,” the Albuquerque Mountain Rescue Council Facebook post states.