Watch: Crew Rescues Man Clinging To Tree In Raging LA River

LOS ANGELES, CA — A Los Angeles man is lucky to be alive today after a firefighters found him clinging to a tree branch as the rain-swollen LA River threatened to sweep him away.

The dramatic rescue was caught on tape Thursday when the Los Angeles Fire Department used a helicopter to airlift him to safety. The 50-year-old man had been clinging to the tree in the middle of the LA River in the Atwater Village area for sometime when he was spotted, according to the fire department. By the time rescuers could reach him, he was suffering from hypothermia.

“When firefighters got on scene they did, in fact, have a 50-year-old male that was mid-stream, clinging to a tree, and that was in need of an immediate rescue," said Fire Captain Erik Scott.
The water was flowing at speeds of about 15 mph, said an LAFD spokesman.

Knowing rain storms often catch residents unaware around the LA River, the fire department deployed crews upstream and downstream and sent a helicopter crew to look for people trapped by the suddenly raging river. It was the helicopter crew that spotted the man, but the rescue effort was perilous. A firefighter dangled amid the tree tops, spinning rapidly among the branches as he attempted to reach the trapped man.

“We hovered a helicopter over that individual,” Scott explained. “We dropped a firefighter-paramedic down, secured him, and brought the victim back up into the helicopter where paramedics rendered immediate medical aid for potential hypothermia and subsequently had transported to a local hospital.

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